When I spoke of funk - can you imagin how bad the song "Slide by Slave" would have sound if it were not played in the key of E? Being a shade tree Bassist, Open E opened a can of [get your solo on] if you were a bass player in the 70's, except for the master Mr. Stanley Clarke. He was the first to win Bassist of the year - 5 years in a row - in Guitar Player Magazine.

The Real Thing by Sergio Mendes sound like garbage if it is played at 0% pitch, it has to be played at a minimun speed of +6% pitch.

Pardon me for being mis-understood while I tried to make a long story short.

Yall are definetly hittin' on some truth to the mystery of House. Before we can understand what House IS, we need to understand what it IS not.

House was not created by Farley.
Even Farley will admit that. Farley is and always has been an opportunist. We can all tell stories about what Farley has stolen from whom. Records, titles, names, songs, etc.

House was not created by Jesse Saunders.
Jesse's first record was nothing more than a note for note duplication of a bootleg Disco record from somebody else. None of his other records have passed the test of time.
Oh, "Love Can't Turn Around"? That wasn't his record, wasn't Farley's...That was Steve's joint. I think yall know they stole it from Steve. Anybody that knew Jesse back in the days KNOWS that he didn't want any parts of the House scene. Jesse always wanted to be an R&B artist. He was so embarrased of his lame attempts at dance music that he woldn't put his own name most of them. Jesse was about 4 years older than me, but we went to the same grammar school, same high school, and at one time lived about 2 blocks away from each other. Jesse was definetly an influence for me, but not quite as much as Vince was. I remember taking Jesse one of my early tunes to listen to...his comment was, "You should get another hobby". Vince on the other hand, was the person who taught me how to program the TR 808 drum machine and later lowned me Jesse's drum machine because they were bored with it. They thought it sounded too old. They had picked up a Linn drum machine and it had more of a contemporary R&B sound and feel. Before the theft of Steve's record, Jesse would bluntly deny having anything to do with "House Music" he said it was beneath him, he was an R&B artist. Things changed after the record blew up in Europe.

Frankie did not create House Music.
I read a good quote on another message board..."Frankie played Disco...and didn't even make a record until 1987. To say Frankie created House Music is like saying Dick Clark created Rock & Roll".
Everyone envied Frankie's sound system. Everyone envied Frankie's crowd. Nobody envied his mixing. Frankie has always been a great DJ, but his ability to blend two records back in the dayz was...challenged.
Frankie played a lot of tape edits on reel to reel. I and many others made some of those tape edits that he and Ronnie have been credited for. Not saying that they didn't do some of them on their own, just saying that they didn't do all of them.
Fact is, nobody outside of Chicago knew about Frankie until WE started talking about him. It was when the European press bombarded us (we were young and unprepared) that we spoke of The WareHouse and Frankie.
They made the assumption that Frankie created House Music (and now even Frankie believes that). Fact is, Frankie was a motivator for many of us. If Frankie hadn't played my early tape edits and then played my pre-studio trax (Dr.Rhythm drum machine and Casio keyboard played without a sequencer, direct to 1/4" reel to reel) I'm sure I would never have made a record. Frankie AND Ronnie allowed me to use their clubs as a proving ground for my early ideas. I can never thank either of them enough for the encouragement they offered.
Note, I co-produced Frankie's first record "You Can't Hide" and the first actual mix of a record that Frankie ever did was "Like This" but his mix was never released. Sure Frankie did a re-mix on "Let No Man Put Asunder" but that's very different from mixing an original song.
The first released Frankie mix of an original song was "If You Only Knew". Ronnie's first released mix (and first time in the studio) was when I brought him in to do a mix on "Donnie".

As for Leonard Remix Rroy...I first met him around 1982/3 at a DJ battle at the Playground. We (along with Sherman "Shockin" Oliver who helped me prepare for the battle) were contestants in the battle. I remember thinking that Leonard was absolutely amazing on the tables. Me, I sucked big time. In '82 I couldn't mix water with kool-aid. I had ideas, but no skills. I started off with a Sesame Street record (nobody'd ever done that before) and slammed in Moody, then I slammed in another record and I was taken off the tables before I could embarass myself any further. Leonard was pulled off because they alledged that he used a "pre-mixed" record. Leonard was using a portion of the record, but not a "mixed" portion.
He was robbed. I would go on to do other parties with Leaonard including a few at "The Rink Zone". The first tape edit I ever heard was Leonard's "Inspector Gadget" mix. That was before Steve's "Aw Shucks" tape edit. I can't speak to Leonard's claim of coining the term "House Music" but I can say that if Farley says he did, there must be some truth to it. That being said, it's a fact that the short name for the "Warehouse" was "The House". It's also a fact that people would come into Importes, Etc. and ask for "Warehouse" music. It's a fact that we got tired of putting "Warehouse Music" on the record bins and shortened it to "House Music". But let's remember that during that time...if Leonard was saying "House Music" or Importes, Etc. was saying "House Music" we were really talking about Disco, Funk and R&B music. At that time there was no new music genre created. Like Jere said, at that time it didn't mean anything outside of Chicago. In othe places the same music would have been called "club music", "dusties", "disco", "Philly", "Salsoul" or some other existing style of music.

Anyway, that's enough of that.
As far as the Preppy link. You're right on. I started high school in 1980 at St. Iganatius, Reagan was the president, the country was very conservative, and The Official Preppy Handbook was our guide to life. Yall didn't really think my parents named me "Chip" didja? Almost everybody in my class had a Preppy nickname. I didn't really start using it until the battle at the Playground. Anyway...mom couldn't afford the tuition, so in my sophmore year I transferred to Percy Julian. That's where I hooked up with some older guys from grammar school that would cut school and either go to "Whitney Young" (we could actually get in and walk through the halls during classes back then or get into the cafeteria and meet chicks), "Kenwood Academy" or we'd go to somebody's house with tables. So cuttin' class and mixing was a regular thing.
Then the local gangs had some interest in me, so my mother (wise in the ways of the world) sent me to school in Los Angeles. Yeah, that's where I learned about Bloods and Crips. Talk about out of the fryin' pan... When I got back to Chicago for my junior year we scammed a friend's address and I enrolled at Kenwood Academy. That's when shit just got off the hook. First day at school I started kickin' it with this cheerleader, Tammy. At the time I didn't even know she was kickin' it with this chick
Shawn. Anyway, it turned into something of a triangle. Long story short (yeah right) Shawn introduced me to an older friend of hers, Julie. Julie would be the person to take me to Imports, Etc. for the first time. Around my junior year I started working part-time at Imports, Ect.
From '83 to '85 I worked at Imports, Etc.
Not only did I know every DJ and every wannabe DJ in the city, but I knew what was being played at each club. I was the one puttin' aside a copy of Stop Bajon for Frankie or Ronnie. I was the one that said order "Gaucho" even though nobody else in the store thought it would make it. My finger was on the pulse of the music industry. I put together my experiences from DJing, the knowledge I was getting in production and marketing from Columbia College, the knowledge I was getting from working at Imports and talking to other jocks and (along with my boy Kurt Landrum)did my best to create a style of music that cared about nothing but making people dance. I never thought I'd have a record on the radio, and didn't care about radio. I never thought I'd perform around the world and didn't care about it.
All I knew was that I loved Chicago and wanted to give my friends some new music to play and some new music to dance to. That was my motivation. Some people called me the Godfather of House, but you know what? I don't care about titles. I'm not going to try to convince anybody that I created House Music, but I can definetly tell you who didn't. Yall can draw your own conclusions.

I have an uncle that lives on 87th and Constance (i'm pretty sure thats the street). He been there for about 30 years.Did you or your grand parents know a Mr Hampton Caves.

-Gerard

quote:

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Originally posted by ibddj:
Wow it's amazing how one little question led to all this. a lot of history. I love it.
To put my two cents in, I grew up in Evanston, but spent a lot of weekends, and summers with my Grandparents on 87th and Constance, and my cousin Mike always had these tapes, I don't know who mixed them or what, but it was the shit. This was about 82,83. alot of disco, and a lot of electronic music, did not know it had a name, but it later transformed to be house music.So that was my first house experiance.
Then around that same time WNUR started the street beat show and introduced house music to the north side, so that was the first time I heard the term house.

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Even though I heard some songs played at the Rink/Box/Sauers, Thru WNUR I was able to listen and appreciate Disco.

-G

Thanks Chip....as I said before "who in their right mind could had ever thought the words - IT'S HOUSE - would become a trademark for chicago music"

The things we are remembered for....

It's House & Time to Jack Chip E
117 & Let's Go - Let's Go Farley Keith
Inspector Gagget & Fastest Hands on wax Leonard Rroy
1st. to play Your Love on wax Steve Hurley

from a DJ prospective, can we agree that old Disco, Funk, R&B that we edited, pitched up or down, and altered it to make is dancable
music = House Too, since we did not call them remixes back then?

Don't shoot the DJ, it's just a question...lol.

I still have Photos of Chip & I from the Rink Zone days. Man I look at the tiger skin shirt I was wearing that night and wonder.....what was I thinking????????

Sherman Oliver is one of my best friends and he told me about that night at the playground. Thanks for keeping it real. Keep on dropping the knowledge!

Actually I didn't go to our school functions.My best friend went to LAB; I was at theirs all the time.

quote:

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Originally posted by :

All I knew was that I loved Chicago and wanted to give my friends some new music to play and some new music to dance to. That was my motivation. Some people called me the Godfather of House, but you know what? I don't care about titles. I'm not going to try to convince anybody that I created House Music, but I can definetly tell you who didn't. Yall can draw your own conclusions.

Peace,
-e.

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You are absolutely right Farley did not create House music, he just coopted the term and he admits he got it from LRRoy.
Jesse did not create house music. He just made ON and ON (the note for note disco record you were talking about) because the original was hard to find, and he probably was just looking to make some side money. Like you said he and Vince were more interested in R&B (Jesse's Gang) and Industrial (Bang Orchestra), but they had more studio access than a lot of us did, at the time. Frankie did not create House music, it was just the reputation of his club that was a big driving force. I'm sure he had a distaste for some of the first "House" trax (except for Jamie Principle's) that were made, as just bad imitations of Disco records. And, as has already been established he didn't even start making House records until 1987. I did "Let The Music Use You" (under the name Alan Walker - long story) with him about the time he had just gotten started.

Except for, maybe, Farley, a lot of the people who are credited with being the so-called GodFathers of House, probably didn't really have a lot of respect for the music at first. But, when it got big, everybody was claimin', and trying to reap the benefits. Some that really didn't deserve it.

But, IMO, that's the problem, too many people are trying to claim that they were the originator. That's like one or two people trying to claim that they, or trying to pinpoint who, started Rock & Roll (like Little Richard), Jazz, Blues, or even Disco. It seems to me that House was just a movement. Something that developed because of the contributions of a lot of different people who were all feeling a similar thing at the same time. It was just a next step in the natural evolution of music. The offspring of Disco. Disco had been pronounced dead, but it wasn't ready to die. House was just the embodiment of that spirit trying to live on and grow. It was just something in the air. Kind of a synchronicity. The time was right, and House was born!!!

BTW, How is Kurt L.(another W.Y. Alumnus)? Have you heard from him lately? What's he up to?

This is a list that I hope people add to and find some the lost ones I cant find.

Prior to the Preppie thing it was Nu Wave.
Herb Kent hosted a radio show titled Punk Out. The main club that got plugged was First Impressions - Located directly across the street from what became the Playground.
Sing Sing Sing & Disco Circus were standard songs in any DJ play list. This was in 1980, and the norm was bleaching Levi Jeans on one leg.

The Preppie thing came about in 1981 at the Penthouse, Lenell used to blaze the dance floor. I always wanted to dance like him, he was a site to see! Steve Hurley used to DJ there and jam his *ss off. The popular dance was The Sixty Nine.

Steve Hurley & Farley are equal to Jordan & Pippin except, Steve always had more skills than Farley did in my opion. I dont to this day know how he [Steve] got over-shadowed by Farley.

THIS IS NOT AN EGO STATEMENT - If if were not for my speed, Steve & I would be twins as of the mix. I saw Steve do mix trix an the Penthouse that Farley Got Famous for at the Playground.

The I Cant / Love Cant - turn around drama between Farley, Steve, & Jessy really tore apart all unity among DJ's. That one situation said "Every Man For Himself & GOD For All".

Question - I passed the torch to Mike Dunn & Tyree Cooper, I Fear The Night & Dance You Mutha were a success, can you imagin what they could had come up with as a team?

Had Farley & I combined insted of being rivals, we could have had the #1 club in the city. Farley was known to have an ego too large for any DJ booth and not willing to give anybody a shot to show their skills especially if they were better than he was.

I always gave positive input, Chip E & Mike Dunn will agree to that, I was the - willing to help a DJ learn trix & stuff, while others were tring the remain King.

Flipping the idea my mom gave me [House] was a weapon that is still firing today as we all type on this page.

Punk lasted 1 year, Preppie lasted 1 year and to quote my mom, she said "you call it Preppie but, that style is Ivy League fashon 60's Stuff".

House has out-lived Disco, Preppie, Nu wave/Punk Out. One thing we can all agree on is..........House sure as F**K aint a New York Thang! It's Foundation is Chicago and our DJ's.