In 1991, Lisa Michaelis, an largely unknown singer, appeared on television sets and exhumed freeness, casually dancing in a white bowed top, with slight cleavage exposed, to melodic hymns of house music. One minute and ten seconds into the mostly black-and-white music video, Michaelis’ soothingly proclaims: “I need someone to be there and hold me/When the rain falls/Won’t you be there to hold me/When the rain falls/Let it fall/Let it all fall”. While Michaelis enchants viewers as an house songstress (the singer was originally part of a rock band), focally, moments after, Frankie Knuckles shepherds Lisa, almost as his muse, succinctly advising her as a friend, teacher, or father. It’s a mantle that Knuckles always held.
At thirty-seven, signed to Virgin Records, with renowned fame in undergrounds’ of New York, Chicago, and Europe, Knuckles’ career in 1991 was finally reaching into a pinnacle with the release of his debut album, Beyond the Mix. The New Yorker native told The Advocate his goal was, “to be accepted on the strength of my work and for nothing else. Unfortunately, one of the big dangers of being out of the closet when you’re a public figure is that the question of who choose to sleep with will overshadow your work”.
Starting his career in early ninety-seventies, Knuckles, alongside childhood friend Larry Levan, trailed New York clubs at the rise of the cities’ post-stonewall, pre-disco era. Disco prominently swayed audiences into a moment of blissful sensuality, opening audiences’ into a world where drug intake and pansexuality are not only open but celebrated. Knuckles and Levan embedded themselves in disco by scoring jobs across the city, both would work for The Gallery and Continental Baths (a gay bathouse in an Upper East Side Hotel, The Ansonia Hotel) — Levan until 1976, Frankie until its closure a year later. The two friends would find havens in the disco era by establishing their own residency: Levan becoming a mainstay in 1977 New York with his residency at Paradise Garage, a hub where cultural workers such as Madonna, Diana Ross, and Keith Haring mingled in 1984; Knuckles moved to Chicago, in the same year, and gained ownership for Robert Williams’ club, The Bowery (Levan was originally asked, to which he declined, Knuckles was Williams third choice). Robert Williams would describe Knuckles’ first show with disdain saying, “they read Frankie for playing music they didn’t know”. Explaining himself to BBC’s Dave Pearce, “Before I moved to Chicago, all they had was juice bars”. Micah Salkind, author of ‘Do You Remember House? Chicago’s Queer of Color Undergrounds’, explained: “Frankie Knuckles found Chicago audiences more narrow-minded than New Yorkers when it came to repertoire, but he learned quickly that he would have to respond to their feedback if he were to succeed.”
In 1979, The Bowery, catering to gay Hispanics and African-Americans ranging from twenty-two to thirty-three-year-olds, stayed segregated as Steve Dahl, a sports radio host, commissioned a demolition of disco records that summer in Comiskey Park, five miles away to where Knuckles made ‘gumps’ (faggots) sweat Saturday night. The next years would prove to be the successful transition for Knuckles financially and culturally. Patrons of The Bowery (originally titled US Studios, a non-profit, membership-only club) dubbed its played out forte in favor for The Warehouse, a name which ringed until the DJ departure in 1982, accusing Williams of pushing out queer people after he threw out the clubs’ infamous membership clause, patronizing towards a more mainstream (straight and white) crowd. While Knuckles and Williams both endeavored into greater heights — Williams’ opened a new club, in 1983, entitled The Music Box, with Chicago premiere resident Ron Hardy; while Knuckles immediately opened a club blocks away from The Warehouse, in 1982, brandished as The Power Plant — both of these men created the thesis for house music (The Warehouse is where the term ‘house’ derives from). DJ Mike Winston expertly describes Frankie’s mixes at the time, specifically his inclusion of gospel music when the sun slitters through the windows, such as The Whalnuts “Help is on the Way”, as joyful revelations, tearing when he heard the track. ““[That was] the only emotion I could have . . . I was like, ‘oh my God, who is this person? Who’s playing this music?’ It was so intense. And it was Frankie . . . that’s what he did. He could get that type of emotion out of you. It was like, ‘Oh my God, who is this guy?’’” Knuckles would then describe his first residency as “For most people that went to The Warehouse it was church”.
In 1987, Levans’ Paradise Garage closed, Ron Hardys’ The Music Box closed, and Frankie Knuckles’s The Power Plant closed. With a new breed of artists and tracks brewing, such as Marshall Jefferson’s Move Your Body (1986), Farley “Jackmaster” Flash’s Love Can Turn Around (1986), Fingers Inc.’s Can You Feel It (1988), house music was quickly becoming mainstream but leaving their founding fathers default as musicians (ex. Madonna’s Vogue) appropriated the genre as their next musical identity. The forefathers also dealt with the deaths of their core audience due to HIV/Aids. Keith Haring, Patrick Kelly, Arthur Ashe, Ron Hardy, and countless untold names died of the disease, while Knuckles’ best friend, Larry Levan died in 1992, suffering from a heart attack caused by endocarditis. “It really didn’t hit me how serious it was until it really hit close to home”, Frankie said in the 2003 documentary, Maestro. A mentor to Ron Hardy and producers in Chicago, the DJ would continue, “If [people] weren’t dead, they were walking dead”. This pivotal moment would create a sentimental shift in tone and structure for the house veteran on his sophomore album, Welcome to The World (1995).
In a similar vein as collaborating with unknown Lisa Michaelis, Knuckles crafted Welcome to the World as a collaboration album with Adeva, an established house singer whose popularity is only found in Europe. The album is a sharp contrast to Knuckles’ Beyond the Mix. Where the DJ’s debut featured various styles relatable to its time, such as ‘Party At My House’s hip-house influence, songs on his sophomore effort saw growth as Knuckles’ returned to his Chicago house but also introduced gospel into his repertoire. ‘Too Many Fish’, Knuckles’ third and last top charting single, explored New Jack Swing but remained house through Adeva’s soulful vocals. ‘Whadda U Want’, one of the standouts, expertly returns the DJ into his Chicago roots but also introduce mainstream audiences into his traditional gospel roots that also reminisce towards First Choice’s early nineteen-eighties single, Let No Man Put Asunder (to which Knuckles remixed, the remix would be the first remix pressed and released for Knuckles’ career). Frankie Knuckles pristine hour would come in the albums’ last track, ‘Tribute’, a sobering reminder of how queer talent dashed quickly and heartlessly by AIDS.
I see his face in many things
I hear his voice everywhere
And feel his spirit surround me
Like so many lives he’s touches mine still
I remember as kids breaking into this business Larry was always a risk-taker
… [continuing later on]…
On the day Larry died I felt I lost one of the greatest friends I ever known
As I examine closer
I realize I couldn’t lose him
For I will always have what we shared
And I only regret for being me
For knowing him
(Frankie Knuckles, Tribute)
Frankie Knuckles may not be known DJ as other New York counterparts, such as nineties tribal DJs Junior Velasquez and Pet Shop Boys, or even have the same album figures as these DJs, “Beyond the Mix” and “Welcome to the World”, sold 8,000 and 13,000 units, respectively. Frankie Knuckles, however, undoubtedly established a nest for young queer creatives whose focus is based on black culture, whose focus is based on spirituality, whose focus is house music based on chosen family and community. Micah E. Salkind explained, “Knuckles provided space and time for aspiring DJ/producers to develop their skills producing with, opening for, and filling in for him as well… All the while he developed a lyrical, sensuous mixing style that he would export to the world as touring artist and in-demand producer/remixer for nearly thirty years”.
The aughts saw Knuckles’ active in the industry, far better than his Chicago contemporaries, and continued his remix trend that started in the early eighties and maneuvered into the nineties where he became the first recipient of the Grammy’s Remixer of the Year, Non-Classical. Commissioned to remix for acts such as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Sounds of Blackness, Aaron Neville, Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan, Toni Braxton (his Grammy award-winning remix), Knuckles’ repertoire should read as an acclaimed maestro but unfortunately, his legacy is difficult to track for a new generation as house music entirely erased their forefathers. “We went from culture to entertainment”, Honey Dijon proclaims in an interview with Mix Magazine . A descendent of Chicago house (born and raised in the city) Dijon continues, “Once this music was colonized, it became entertainment, and the music reflects that”.
In 2004, Senator Barack Obama declared August 25th Frankie Knuckles Day in Chicago, a milestone for any musician — especially a black gump from Bronx, New York. While decades past have seen forefathers of the genre bundled together for documentaries and exemplary journalism profiles, one can never forget that this is the house that Frankie Knuckles built. The Godfather of House.
Bibliography
- “10 Frankie Knuckles Facts You Might Not Know.” Ministry of Sound, www.ministryofsound.com/posts/articles/2020/march/10-frankie-knuckles-facts-you-might-not-know/.
- Barna, Ben. “Memories of the Paradise Garage, From Those Who Danced There.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 May 2014, tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/flashback-memories-of-the-paradise-garage-larry-levan-street-party/.
- Flick, Larry. “Spin Doctor.” The Advocate, 13 Aug. 1992, pp. 74–75. LGBT Magazine Archive; Accessed 26 Oct. 2020.
- “Frankie Knuckles Talks to Dave Pearce : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, archive.org/details/FrankieKnucklesTalksToDavePearce.
- “The Houses of House: Now & Then.” BOILER ROOM, 5 July 2015, boilerroom.tv/chicago-house-now-then-gallery/.
- I Was There When House Took Over the World · [Full … www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rah1F1zq1k.
- Lauryn, Ash. “Honey Dijon: ‘Dance Music Has Been Colonised.’” Mixmag, mixmag.net/feature/honey-dijon-dance-music-has-been-colonised.
- Salkind, Micah. Do You Remember House?: Chicago’s Queer of Color Undergrounds. Oxford University Press., 2019.
