It’s been a year to the day since the godfather of house music, Frankie Knuckles, died at the age of 59, and today the city of Chicago pays tribute to his legacy.

Knuckles – one of the most sought-after remixers in club music, working with scores of stars, including Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan and Diana Ross – will be celebrated across the city as Chicago house music legends join forces to mark the occasion. “It’s been a year since the house music community lost a guiding light, and we want to celebrate Frankie’s life,” said Alan King, founder of the city’s Chosen Few DJ collective.

Boiler Room, the UK’s leading underground music channel, hosts a tribute at Chicago’s Smart Bar, where Frankie had a residency from 1982 until 2014. The lineup includes Elbert Philips, whom Knuckles described in 2002 as his “definite first-choice if I ever need to pass the torch,” Michael Serafini, owner of music store Gramaphone Records, and Derrick Carter, one of Knuckles’s oldest friends. There will be an opening speech from Robert Williams, the man who gave him his residence at the Warehouse club – a venue many consider the birthplace of the house music genre.

Gabriel Szatan, Boiler Room’s online deputy editor and programmer, said: “Frankie played twice for us, in New York and in London, and we wanted to celebrate the legacy he’s left behind and showcase how house music still thrives in the city. We’ve got new names, like the Black Madonna, as well as important people from Knuckles’s life and various members of Chicago house cognoscenti. This community is rooted in house music and we wanted to document that. It’s about celebrating Frankie the man, and the legacy he left behind.”

Elsewhere, Chicago-based Rockit Ranch Productions, is hosting a launch party for The Warehouse movie project, which takes its name from the West Loop nightclub where Knuckles played his marathon sets.



The film will explore the Grammy-award winning producer’s musical contribution to the city, as well as looking at the way his music drew large and diverse crowds to a club that had primarily catered for gay, black men.

Aside from various live events, it’s also been announced that the house pioneer’s legacy will be marked with a new release on 26 April: Defected Records will unveil a posthumous compilation chronicling Knuckles’s illustrious career. Work on the two-disc compilation began in February 2014, with Knuckles himself taking the lead on choosing what tracks he wanted included; it will feature a host of his most influential records, including The Whistle Song, Your Love and Tears, as well as his remixes of acts such as Chaka Khan, Pet Shop Boys and Hercules & Love Affair.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Knuckles has been celebrated in the Windy City. Back in 2004, thanks to a campaign backed by Barack Obama, who was then a senator, South Jefferson Street in Chicago, the original site of the Warehouse, was renamed Frankie Knuckles Way.