Edits of these pieces first appeared in Faith Fanzine’s Chicago special, AUTUMN / WINTER ’22/23

Super selections and wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

Everyone knows that house music was born in Chicago, and that while the first records to be made date from around 1984 / 1985, it wasn’t until the summer of `86 that the music crossed over to the UK public at large, and built the momentum which would culminate with acid house becoming a full-blown youth culture by the summer of `88. I think of this period from 84-89 as the first wave of Chicago house. Here are a handful of slightly lesser-known gems from that period….

Risqué III – Essence Of A Dream / Risqué Madness – Stride Records Inc. 1987

This is an absolute masterpiece from K-Alexi Shelby, Frank Sneed, and Robert McKay. A record which defies any easy categorization. In truth it’s much closer to the music that was beginning to emerge from Detroit, that would come to be called “techno”. Both sides of this 12 are utterly peerless pieces of music. Haunting, dark, intense, melodic… and both continue to be played to this day. 

The A-side, Essence Of A Dream, combines a killer driving bassline, beautiful spoken vocals, and the kind of haunting string sounds that Derrick May would later make one of his trademarks. It all sounds VERY Detroit. On the flip we have Risqué Madness, a tribute to the genius of Ron Hardy, or more specifically to his skills as a re-edit pioneer. Ron would often make exclusive edits of tracks to play at the legendary club, The Music Box, on his reel to reel. One such track, where he looped a section and made a Music Box anthem, was a disco oddity called Life Is A Jungle, by Kikrokos, taken from an LP called Jungle D.J. & Dirty Kate. The song in its entirety was / is such an “oddity” that it’s unplayable, but Ron would extend and play just its incredible middle section, which sounds like a techno record, but made by a French disco outfit – comprised of some of the members of Kongas – in 1978. It’s this that Risqué Madness recreates. This track is THE SHIT!

Like so many of those early house records, I first heard the Risqué III on Stu Allan’s ‘Bus-Diss’ Sunday night radio show, on Manchester’s Key 103 FM. I was only 16 or 17. I recall popping into Spin Inn on a Saturday afternoon, in December ’87, with the intention of buying the import 12”, but instead buying a copy of Jack Trax – The Third Album, since it included not only Risqué Madness, but also Strings Of Life, Off To Battle, Distant Planet, Land Of Confusion, and a host of other completely essential house tracks, now regarded as classics. So, the choice was 2 tracks on an import 12”, or 16 tracks on a double LP. I am Scottish you know, so I do like a bargain. I wouldn’t get my hands on an original US import 12 until I started working in Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange, and by that point it was worth approximately 4 times its original retail price. I got a descent staff discount though, so wasn’t too painful.

While working in Vinyl Exchange my colleague Russ Marland clued me up to a version of Essence Of A Dream that I knew nothing about. Russ used to work at Spin Inn back in the `80s before setting up Manchester Underground Records in the 1990s. He was also a Hacienda resident DJ for many years, as well as M-People’s tour DJ. He knows A LOT about house music. The version in question was released on the same label, Stride, not long after the original issue, but under a different name, Video Mind. Title has been changed to Do It For Me & I’II Do It For You (Re:Mix), with the original on the flip. It’s a nice version, and a nice little secret weapon.

House To House Featuring Kym Mazelle – Taste My Love – Police Records 1987

This is another track that I first heard on Stu Allan’s Bus Dis. I didn’t realise that it would be more than a decade before I owned a copy… 

Three giants of house music come together on this 12”, which for me is some of the best work that any of them ever made. I am, of course, referring to Chicago house pioneers, Marshall Jefferson, and Adonis, and super singer, Kym Mazelle. Police was Kym’s label, an offshoot of Bright Star, and Taste My Love was the first record that she recorded with Mr. Jefferson. It might be one of the earliest examples of what’s now known as ‘deep house’, but, to be honest, in late `87 we were just calling it all ‘house music’. Even the “techno” coming out of Detroit, was still being called house. This track is one of the most sublime pieces of bassline-driven house that I own, with a beautiful, sexy vocal. Oddly, they must have thought that it might crossover and be a big hit, as it has a short ‘Radio Mix’ on the A-side, with the longer club mixes on the flip.

After taping this tune from Stu Allan’s show, I spent a good few months listening to it before deciding that I might actually invest in a copy. I had a part time job, at this point, as well as a – very small – hardship grant, since I was at 6^th form college. studying for an Art & Design Foundation Course. Although I now had more money than I’d ever had before, it was still a big commitment to buy an import 12”, although increasingly this is what I was spending my money on. I went in to Spin Inn one autumnal Saturday afternoon, but they’d sold out. It was the same story at Eastern Bloc…. and that was that. I never managed to track down a copy at the time. When I moved to Brighton in September ’88 I first tried Rounder Records, and then made occasional visits to London, hitting various Soho record shops, but to no avail. It had gone. I’d missed my window of opportunity. It seemed bizarre that this track should have had such a short lifespan. Aside from hearing it a few times again in clubs in early ’89, it really didn’t get the attention it deserved. For me it’s right up there with Marshall’s best, better known productions, like Someday or Open Our Eyes.

When I started working in Vinyl Exchange in February 1991, I was fully expecting a copy to turn up pretty soon. But it never did. Eventually I resorted to what all Mancunian record addicts do when they are desperate. I asked Keith Richard if he could find me one. I mentioned Keith several times before, it would be impossible not, since on the Manchester music / record scene he’s a legend… and no, I’m not talking about the Rolling Stones guitarist. Keith was a music fanatic, who decided that he didn’t want to get a “normal” job, and would instead scour every last place in the North of England, locating cheap records that were actually worth money to the right person. His true love was UK street soul, but his knowledge of black music in general was incredible, and ever expanding, and so he would raid charity shops, house clearances, car-boot sales, church fetes, jumbles – anywhere he could find records at bargain prices. The list of records that he’s found for me is too long to go into here, and every serious collector in Manchester will tell you a similar story. 

… and so it was, that in the very late `90s I asked Keith if he could find me a copy of Taste My Love. He did in fact already have a spare copy, and it was mine, for about 10X what it would have cost me on import back in `87. It even has its original price sticker of £5.49 on the sleeve, just to rub it in.*

Thankfully for all you house heads who don’t have access to a Keith Richard, Clone Records reissued the 12 on their Clone Classic Cuts series in 2006, so you can pick it up pretty cheap now.

S.L.Y. – I Need A Freak (Black Freak Mix) – Elite Records 1988

Celebrating its 35^th birthday, and released in what became acid house’s UK ‘year zero’, this is a little less lauded than other house tracks from 1988. While the squelching sound of the Roland TB-303 may have been dominating dancefloors, deep and vocal house cuts were also around in abundance…

S.L.Y. was a trio Chicago house producers closely associated with the DJ International Records label. Peter Black, Frankie “Hollywood” Rodriguez, and Julian “Jumpin” Perez. This, however, is their only release under this moniker, and the sole release on this imprint, Elite. Perhaps there’s a hint in the name, S.L.Y., that they were worried about the semi-legal nature of their track, which is a blatant cover version of the latter half of the Diana Ross classic, Love Hangover. Something that they fail to make any mention of, with no credit given to Marilyn McLeod and Pam Sawyer who wrote the hit for Diana. Sly indeed, eh! This non sharing of publishing royalties is totally on trend with the notoriously ‘Wild West’ ethos of those early Chicago years.

The main ‘Club Freak’ mix actually isn’t very good, which might explain why this record wasn’t a major club smash across the UK. However, it did find a devoted audience at The Hacienda, and other Manchester clubs, when those DJs who put in the hard yards, turned the thing over, and listened to the B-side. The ‘99^th Street Piano Mix’ is a very passable instrumental track, but the real magic all lies in the old ‘B-side-track-2’ cliché! The ‘Black Freak Mix’ explodes into life in a way the other mixes sadly fail to, and make this an absolutely anthemic piece of house. The clunkiness of the other mixes is gone, as has the annoying vocal part. The arrangement is tighter, and the drums and bass are thumping! When those strings swoop in over what’s left of the song, the track soars into orbit.

I picked up a copy soon after starting work in Vinyl Exchange. There were quite a lot around back then, and that old Chicago sound was somewhat out of favour – so wasn’t pricey. Its value seemed to rocket as the `90s wore on though, and a whole new raft of DJs discovered its charms. It’s house, but also very disco, almost garage sounding, so seemed to find a bigger audience than on its initial release.

It was while in Chicago on a DJ trip, which had also taken in Orlando, with Adrian LuvDup that I came across my cherished promo copy. This must have been the mid-90s. The height of Chicago’s second coming. We went shopping in the legendary Gramophone Records, spending a long afternoon sheltering from the cold, and buying a tonne of great music. I found this in the rack, for not much money at all – I’m sure it was $6 or something daft!. I’ve never seen another promo copy.

William S – I’ll Never Let You Go – Trax Records 1987

From its first release at the tail end of 1985, through a run of a staggering 90+ records by the end of 1989, very few record labels have had anything like the impact on the world of dance music that Trax Records has. You could write a very descent novel / film script about the various levels of chicanery, malpractice and dodgy dealing that went on, but you really cannot argue with the output – simply phenomenal. That phenomenal output is at least partly why the odd track seemed to fall through the cracks as it were, not really getting the attention it deserved. Take William S’ I’ll Never Let You Go.

To provide some perspective, the record Trax released following William S. was a little ditty, by a young trio with the name of Phuture. Something called Acid Tracks! Which was a real shame for William, because I’ll Never Let You Go, his only solo record, is bloody fantastic! Written and produced by Liddell Townsell and Danny “Sweet D” Wilson, this is another sublime slice of deep vocal house. The bass-line sounds like one of Marshall Jefferson’s finest, the instrumentation on the track evokes some of Larry Heard’s best moments, and the song and vocal delivery is all great!

I’ve no idea why this wasn’t a hit, but hey, it meant that when I started to collect the Trax Records catalogue in the early 1990s, a lot of these lesser-known tracks could be had for pennies. No one wanted most of them, and lots of people who’d been swept up in the initial house music fervour had moved on, in other musical directions, and hence were selling their stash.

This is a huge house record, particularly in its beautiful instrumental version, which really does evoke the feeling of a Mr. Fingers production, and was no doubt a source of significant inspiration for the atmospheric and dreamy Italian house tunes that would emerge in a few years’ time.

Notes 

*My copies of both House To House and William S. both bear stickers for a store, that must have been somewhere up North, called Charts. Anyone know where that was? Can anyone provide any more info? They must have been pretty clued-up and well-stocked. 

(William S is in Danny Rampling’s Shoom Top 50 (as is S.L.Y.) – at the back of Bill and Frank’s, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life – plus it featured on the classic  House Hallucinates comp, so it was a pretty big tune in London – Rob)

For more from Balearic Mike you can find him on both Facebook and Instagram – @balearicmike. 

Mike has a Mixcloud page packed with magnificent, magical, music, and you can catch him live on 1BTN, from 12 noon until 2 (UK time) every 1st and 3rd Friday.

You can also check out the super silk screen prints of “Balearic Wife” over at @jo_lambert_print