Your Love
Song by Jamie Principle and Frankie Knuckles
Francis Warren Nicholls, Jr, better known as Frankie Knuckles or The Godfather of House Music, was born in January 1955 in the Bronx, New York City. Passed away in March 2014, his name has entered the legend of music, initiated by his mixing style as a deejay the House Music of Chicago.
His childhood friend was Larry Levan, and it's remarkable to see that these two kids from "Boogie Down" (Bronx) will have an indelible impact on the club dance music and have a destiny in a mirror game.
One in Chicago, the other in New York and reign as masters for three mythical clubs: The Warehouse and The Power Plant in Chitown for Frankie Knuckles, and the Paradise Garage for Larry Levan in New York.
Still in its teens in the early 70's, dance music had not made the prodigious leap that would be called just a few years later: Disco.
For the time being, the music played to make people dance in the clubs was still called Uptempo R&B. Frankie Knuckles was not yet a deejay.
Still, at barely 16 years old, without a record collection, he became a resident for six months in a club that would also become legendary: Better Days.
With no mixing techniques, the experience was chaotic at first. But, the love of music and records will quickly make him acquire his style and lead him in the following decade to invent a new mixing style, incorporating the use of live drum machines to accentuate and highlight the kick drum's sound on all beats.
This was unheard-of and had a devastating effect guaranteed on the dancers.
In 1977, Frankie Knuckles went to work as a resident deejay in Chicago in Robert Williams' club: the Warehouse. The job was initially offered to Larry Levan, but he refused, having already accepted to work for Mel Cheren and Michael Brody for the imminent opening of the Paradise Garage.
Thus in Chicago, Frankie Knuckles will forge his legend and will meet most of the artists who will become legends of the House Music in the second half of the 80s. Jamie Principle is one of them.
Principle is a young singer and poet who already recorded and released the song "Your Love" on the Persona label in 1986. Oddly enough, the original demo that was pirated and sampled by all of Chicago sounds much more aggressive and rough than Frankie Knuckles's version for Trax.
It is, however, this version, closer to the Italo disco (arpeggio, soaring synths, pop melody, and typically 80's female choruses, and of course the use of the famous Roland TR 909 box), which will become famous and will become a classic of the nascent house.
We already find the signature sound of the duo: a staccato beat thrown by Knuckles, which intensifies as Principle gasps until a pure orgasm emerges on the track.
"Your Love" sums up the spirit of the dancefloor: the possibility of an encounter, a form of escape, the feeling of danger, the will to abandon, ethnic and sexual diversity, and even a kind of political liberation.
In other words, one of the sexiest songs in the annals of electronic music - and it has the merit of not having aged in 30 years. Like a call to escape the normality of the world to enter the liberated and libertine space of the clubs, this song is a real rallying cry and remains the soundtrack of a crowd of young people who made their first experiences on the dancefloor, with the aim of self-fulfillment.
In the spirit, it is the essence of nightlife and transforms dancing into political action, which are the foundations of the Second English Summer Of Love of 1988 and the rave culture in general. It is more by the message than by the music that this record is essential and remains classic electronic dance music.