Page 48 - WRY-Magazine-April-2024

EDITORIAL > 10 YEARS AFTER FRANKIE KNUCKLES’ DEATH: THE LEGACY

Frankie Knuckles was born Francis Nicholls in the Bronx on 18 January
1955, but he is best known around the world as ‘the godfather of house
music’. There are many doubts and certainties about who started the
blues, who invented rock & roll or who pioneered techno, but when it
comes to house music, all the theories point to Knuckles. He was one
of the most prolific house music producers of the 80s and 90s, with
an extensive list of productions, including remixes. His performances,
always extended or very extended, were known across borders. Why
was that? Knuckles used to bring his own edits of disco, post-punk,
R&B, Eurodisco and other tracks to the booth. In doing so, he laid the
groundwork for dance music culture as we know it today.

As a teenager, Knuckles began hanging out in New York’s trendy
after-hours spots such as the Loft, the Sanctuary, Better Days and
Tamburlaine, some of the places where disco is said to have been
born. These adventures were shared with his friend Larry Philpot, who
later introduced himself as Levan. By the mid-seventies, they were
both DJs and worked together in two of the most important disco
venues: the Gallery and the Continental Baths (a very popular gay
multi-room bathhouse). As fate would have it, Knuckles moved to
Chicago, where one of their old friends was opening The Warehouse,
which would become his home and the home of house music. It was
here that Frankie Knuckles began to develop his musicality. He was
experiencing a real creative high, with music coming naturally from
his fingers. His sets were a truly hypnotic mishmash of weird indie,
some rock, synth disco and more. It was to this sound, the sound of
Knuckles, that people began to refer to as house, as a shorthand for
the music they heard in the Warehouse. And so it was born. Knuckles
was particularly fond of weird, rebellious and independent music.
Maybe that’s why house music is still home to everyone, without
discrimination.

His talent and creative taste made him a point of reference, an
influence. Little by little, his disciplines were born, ready to honour and
“His talent and creative taste made build on his legacy. At the Warehouse, he broke down the barriers of
race, colour and gender at ever-expanding music nights. Later, he
him a reference, an influence” went his own way and opened the Power Plant. It was at this point that
a DJ who had noticed Knuckle’s talent sold him a drum machine to
improve his mixes. His sound became more rhythmic, overlaying the
tracks with an insistent drum pulse. Chicago house was born. From
then on, many young producers began to imitate him, in a good way.
This revolutionary dance music grew from hand to hand and crossed
the ocean to the UK, Ibiza and the raves. Frankie Knuckles tried all that
but preferred his original sound. In 1997, he became the first DJ to win a
Grammy Award for ‘Remixer of the Year’.

The story unfolds over the course of a successful career, surrounded
by the admiration of his professional peers. Knuckles was not only the
great pioneer of house music, but a major proponent of dance music
as a whole. He was also an important player in the gay community
and in supporting causes such as AIDS. Ten years have passed since
his death and many more since his birth, but Frankie Knuckles is still
very much alive, in memory and in music, in a legacy that will never
lose rhythm or volume.

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