For this special episode, Chicago house pioneer Marshall Jefferson joins co-hosts Greg Wilson and Mike Atkinson, as we take a look through a list of eighteen early Chicago house classics: compiled and supplied to James Hamilton by Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence, and published in Record Mirror in October 1986.
"You may be amazed", James said at the time, as these tunes - played by Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse and the Power Plant, and by Ron Hardy at the Muzic Box - belong to the period directly before Chicago acts started making their own music, and represent a canon that was far removed from UK club culture during the same timespan.
As the episode unfolds, we try to determine what made these tunes "house" music, before the genre was formally defined and codified; we discover that many of them were in fact created by the same pool of people, particularly from the Philadelphia International and Salsoul labels; we discuss the impact that house music's commercial UK breakthrough in 1986 had on its founding fathers; and we learn more about some of Marshall's own musical inspirations, which lay far beyond the world of dance music.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Mike Atkinson also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?
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