Vince Lawrence honored for contribution to house music

Composer and musician Vince Lawrence was officially recognized by the City of Chicago for his role in creating House Music during a ceremony at Millennium Park over the Memorial Day weekend.

An estimated crowd of 40,000 — on hand for the city’s annual Chicago House Party event — cheered as Lawrence took the stage to accept the award with his wife Tara, his mother Jean, his son London and his daughter Yasmine.

“Looking at where we started and where house music stands today,” he said afterwards. “It’s amazing.”

A teenaged Lawrence and DJ Jesse Saunders ignited the phenomenon that would become House Music from a bedroom on the south side of Chicago during the wee hours of a spring morning in 1983. The childhood friends were finishing off a weekly ritual that they had developed while hosting all-night teen dance celebrations in a juice bar called The Playground at 13th and Michigan Ave.

“It all kinda started from throwing parties in the late-70s,” Lawrence recalls. “We’d get an average of 1,500 to 2,000 kids a night, two nights a week.”

With the help of Saunders’s DJ brother, Wayne, the young impresarios filled the room by spinning the likes James Brown, Kraftwerk, Martin Circus, the B52s and “all the John Rocca songs.”

When the parties ended, they would fuel up on steak and eggs at nearby White Palace Grill before trekking down to Saunders’ home at 72nd and King Dr., where they would continue recording and playing music.

On one typical morning in the spring, they patched a Korg Poly-61, a Moog Prodigy, a Roland TB-303 and a Roland TR-808 into a “newfangled Yamaha MT44 Multitrack Cassette Recorder.” Then they recorded a song called “On and On,” which is considered to be the first house music track in history.

Today, Lawrence’s Slang Music Group creates and records tracks for commercials, television and a select group of well-known artists. Big Sean, Oprah Winfrey and Honda are just a few of the artists and brands enhanced by the studio’s creations.

Lawrence also continues to work on original compositions. He is currently one-third of The 312, a trio that includes Felix Da Housecat and Jamie Principle. The group released “Touch Your Body” on the Crosstown Rebels label last summer.

Billboard described the collaborators as “three important figures in the history of Chicago house music.” While Lawrence is happy with the recognition, he responds with characteristic modesty.

“It’s awesome to even claim such a connection, because it’s way bigger than us as people,” he says. “We just wanted to make a record that would move a crowd.”


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