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Frankie Knuckles will never die
Tuesday 1st April 2014 | Bloddick
It is still unknown under which circumstances Frankie Knuckles, one of the most prophetic Djs since the House Genre was invented (by him), has left us brooding over his myth. First hypothesis lead to consider the diabetes he had been suffering for a long time the main cause, but that's not what we are really interested about at this point. The man was basically the creator of house music; there's much more to talk about other than death itself. Which is always the worst part of life.
Frankie started his walk towards glory the moment he teamed up with Nicky Siano and Larry Levan at “Gallery” in New York. They were the trio that introduced in clubbing the technique of mixing, even with more than two plates to fill up the gaps with sound effects. They were literally the first ones to play a song after another without any interruption in the middle. No Silence. A whole, constant, ever-running flow that would have swept away any musical inhibition forever and ever. Amen.
By 1977 Frankie left his mentors to start his own mission in Chicago, creating history at “Warehouse”. This new, undiscovered environment represented a boundless field for his inspiration and to place the seeds for his experiments. After recovering funk, jazz and souls tracks, he began to edit them with the synth. Old and new were meeting, under his hands, are creating something that rarely has ever been so close to perfection. What was already beautiful, was now becoming magnificent. But still, it felt like something different had just been created. And there was no name to call it. So, like an artist paints a wall for people to see, Frankie played his new music for people to dance to, to love and eventually rename “House Music”. He once said that clubbers from Warehouse themselves decided on “House Music” as the name for his work. The term was later rapidly used by every club around town to define their genre. And so on, like a trickle that turns into an ocean.
Under his influence, the image of the Dj turned into the one of a recognized musician capable of producing art with sound. Not just a guy playing some music on demand at a party, not a jukebox but a sculptor that uses his tools to shape beauty out of a block.
He became what every other DJ after him wanted to be like.
And that's why, Frankie Knuckles will never die.
