I was a fan of parties before I was a fan of house, but I soon realized it was the spirit of and behind the music that facilitated the culture, love and respect for the people around it that really inspired me to dive deeper into dance music itself.
Many people, more now than ever should understand the history and depth of the sound and where it came from as the music still changes form and wavers in and out of the underground. There are many stories, histories and theories. Most have elements of truth and here are a few.
Here’s one lengthy but interesting history lesson for the development of both House music and the dance culture around it, written by Phil Cheeseman for DJ magazine.
The gist of what I tell people and what the basis of house was birthed in Chicago by djs playing new music to a dance heavy scene whom were looking to do something different from the dying disco sound and wanted to focus more on the purity of the rhythm and dance aspects of the music rather than the glam of the scene and the people that surrounded it. The development of new synthetic and electronic rhythms and drums as well as the introduction of samplers facilitated the growth and developments of the first house tracks.
The term “House Music” started from the type of music played at a late 70’s early 80’s Chicago club called The Warehouse; which over time was shortened to just The House. Frankie Knuckles (“The Godfather of House‒s Myspace page), a New York DJ transplant in Chicago, was the first pioneer playing a combination of new sounds from disco, funk, breakbeats, techno and house which all was generalized into a single style of music being played at the Warehouse as just “House music”.
From then on House took on new forms, sounds and genre’s developing from talents like: Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambatta, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley, Farley Keith, Ron Hardy, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Mateo & Matos, Blaze, Adonis, Todd Terry, Frankie Bones, Larry Levan, Tony Humphries, Ian B, Eddie Richards, and many many more…
Eddie Amador’s “House Music” (1999)