Eulogising the ghetto roots of House music, stripping back arrangements to their bare functionality, Paul Johnson has carved out a unique legacy on the more provocative corners of Chicago’s House roots. Vibrant, energetic and corporeal, infused with elements of Funk, Acid, Gospel and Soul, the DJ and producer’s music and sets have stayed close to the original blueprint of the genre with 100’s of records and 6 LPs veering little from his distinctive sound. His biggest success came with “Get Get Down” in the late nineties, but records like “So Much” and “A change is Gonna Come” and LPs like “Second Coming” have made severe impressions in House music over the last three decades.
He arrived at Jaeger and Daniel Gude’s Retro a few weeks back to bring that infectious Chicago spirit to our booth, laying down an intense and energetic set for our Thursday crowd. Skipping over tracks, from obscure acid cuts to chart topping dance music like Dennis Ferrer’s “Hey Hey,” Paul Johnson kept feeding the dance floor with infectious tracks, and even the torrential rain flowing over our tiles could hardly keep us away. We were locked on and so was our recorder, capturing the sounds that live on today through this recording.
* Retro is back this Thursday and you can read a feture on Paul Johnson from Daniel Gude here.