Frankie Knuckles, a legend in the world of dance music and one of the inventors of house music, a steady, beat-driven style played in nightclubs all over the world, died unexpectedly at his Chicago home on Monday. He was 59. Knuckles signature sets were not about explosive non-stop energy. He structured them, he once said, like stories with internal logic and a certain moody momentum. Though he got his start in New York, Knuckles became one of the faces of dance music in another city: Chicago. He moved there in his 20s and quickly began working at a new club. He was the main DJ — he was the only DJ — at a club called The Warehouse, says Charles Matlock, another Chicago DJ, who spoke to NPR last year about the origins of Chicago house. That club ended up lending its name to this genre of music. House spread from Chicago and Detroit to Ibiza and Berlin, and helped sweep in the drug-fueled rave culture in the U.K. in the 90s. But Knuckles was never interested in hedonism. He saw the dance floor as a sacred space. The beat united everybody there. For Frankie Knuckles, the beat was a creed. npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/04/01/297866839/dance-music-legend-frankie-knuckles-dies-at-59 (Neda Ulaby (/03/01/14. Music News from NPR)
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 02:49:11 +0000
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