Steve “Silk” Hurley
Written by Adamant (Fabrice Chenna)
Steve ''Silk'' Hurley is a producer from Chicago, born on November 9, 1962, that House Music and Dance Music fans at large know well.
Present on the scene since 1986, he is the author of a multitude of hits, underground and mainstream, but nothing let imagine that one of his underground tracks would become the first piece of House Music to reach the first place of the British charts with "Jack Your Body."
Composed as a joke, to make his friends laugh, and largely inspired by the bass line of the Classic Disco track "Let no man put asunder" from the female group First Choice, and the abusive use of the vocal sample repeating ad vitam "Jack jack jack jack your body....".
“But the joke ends up at #1 January 1987 in the U.K thanks to the voluminous sale of maxi 45 rpm, a first for the history of the music. ”
Originally released on Underground the sub-label of Dj International of the legendary Rocky Jones, in February 1986, before being found on the henceforth mythical compilation ''The House Sound Of Chicago'' published in England in the spring of the same year, on London Records, where, Pete Tong already reigns as master on all the artistic direction Dance Music of this major company.
The massive success of "Jack Your Body" is not a surprise, "Love Can't Turn Around" of "Farley Jackmaster Funk" had already reached the English top. An insistent rumor claims that Steve Hurley would be the only composer of this song when the two had been sharing the same apartment.
The revenge will be all the more delicious by becoming number 1 a few months later. Steve is a member of WBMX of Chicago and its underground club emissions of Saturday evening; the famous ''Saturday Night Live Ain't No Jive Dance Party''.
He's part of the deejays who have imposed House Music on the Chicago radio landscape by his productions' constant regularity and quality upon the global scene.
Obviously, the famous Roland 808 and 909 drum machines are omnipresent in his early productions. His keyboard gimmicks will even be plagiarized by the opportunists that were the English producers, Stock, Aitken, and Waterman on the track ''Showing Out, for the duo Mel and Kim. The success of ''Jack Your Body'' will allow him to record and release his first album ''Hold On To Your Dreams'', still on London Records.
Thanks to the success of his remix of Roberta Flack's "Uh Uh Ooh Ooh," which became number one in the USA on the Billboard Dance Chart in 1988, helped open vast careers for the remixers and producers to further their success with other artists afterward.
The list of artists he has remixed is impressive: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, En Vogue, Liza Minelli, among other A-listers at the time. His talent alone as a composer and producer will impose worldwide a then-unknown singer, Cece Peniston, with two huge hits, ''Finally'' and ''We Got A Love Thang'' in 1991.
The success will come again in 1992 by producing ''Too Blind To See It'' for Kim Sims. Since then, Steve has founded his own production company "Silk Entertainment," of which S & S Records Inc. is the main label, and has embraced a very successful career as a deejay, being in demand all over the world.
His current productions are more in the style of "Soulful House" than the raw House of the beginnings, making the place beautiful to the gospel singers of his city. Consistent, talented, excellent deejay, Steve Silk Hurley is a rare Chicago pioneer to have had a magnificent career without crossing the desert and be at the top in 2022.