House Music - break beats
Marshall Jefferson - Adonis - Tyree - Todd Terry - Mike Dunn - Fast Eddie - Nitro Deluxe - Joe Smooth - Farley Jackmaster Funk - Frankie Knuckles - Steve Silk Hurley - Royal House .....
House music.... when first hit the shelves was left in the background for specialist DJs to play on late night radio shows. Legend has it... house music was a total error in the studios with the simple 4 bass drums per bar....
The first label to experiment with house music was Westside Records, which released a whole of host of compilation albums called acid house. The first pioneers of the 909 Roland drum machine all featured on those albums. They include Marshall Jefferson, a house music legend and one of the inventors of that sound. House music was founded in Chicago and urban labels such as Westside Records licensed those tracks to the UK for distribution.
Adonis, another founder and legend in his own right released several house tracks, most at that time only avaiable on a compilation labels, around the early to mid 80s.
House music still had not reached a mainstream point just yet and other artist such as Mike Dunn, Tyree, Fast Eddie, Todd Terry, Joe Smooth started appearing on the compilation albums.
Towards the late 80s house music had reached the next level, with Nitro Deluxe releasing This Brutal House, which reached the national charts. He was by no means the first, but the track was released several times before reaching the nationals. Soon followed Royal House with Yeah Buddy, released on Champion Records based in Harlesden, North West London, licensed from Idler Records in the USA. Royal House also had to re-release the track several times before scoring big. The track samples Trouble Funk, a GOGo Band (The name for Hip Hop in the 70s, which used live instruments instead of break beats over rap like vocals.)
Todd Terry (Produced Royal House, tended to use different names) soon came along, combining house music with break beats, which was very different for its time, and very effective in a club atmosphere, releasing Bongo (To The Bat Mobile, lets go)(Sleeping Bag Records), which sampled the original batman of the 60s. This was not his first big hit but his biggest to date, which also sampled Apache by The Incredible Bongo Band. In fact the whole album is full of samples and breaks from the 60s.
Towards the early 90s house music started to mix with hip hop, Artist such as Fast Eddie and Tyree refered to the combination of house music and hip hop as being HIP HOUSE. Which referes to house productions with hip hop rap vocals. Tyree reached the national charts with a hip house track which sampled Lyn Collins - Think. Fast Eddie combined his house music production skills with an MC called Sundance and soon they reached the national charts.
The Jungle Brothers saw a law suit following them when they used Royal House as their backing track for Ill House You, which proved to be successful in court, and were ordered to remove the backing track, so their UK label GEE ST Records released a remix which took the original versions place and can be found on their debut album called Straight out the Jungle.
Joe Smooth took things astep further, he combined RnB with house and released a track called Promised land, in my opion his best to date. Using 909 house type backing track with piano leads over soulful vocals.
Farley Jack Master Funk also scored big releasing several house hits.
In the UK, A Guy Called Gerald scored big with Voodoo Ray and as did Humanoid with Stakker Humanoid (Streewave Records Ealing) Humanoid later changing his name to The Future Sound Of London.
Frankie Knuckles released several Joe Smooth type of house music recordings with soulful vocals laid over house beats (Which later became known as Garage music).
Also in the early 90s saw the Italian House sound gaining strength with Capella and Sueno Latino both scoring highly....
Today house music has several different branches, which Im sure your familiar with....