House Music Chicago Testimony
House Music Chicago Testimony is a series of intimate conversations with the people who built Chicago house music. Hosted by DJ and historian Lori Branch, a South Side native who was there at the beginning, each episode goes deep into the stories of pioneers, friends, and well-known Chicagoans without whom the scene would not exist. These are stories about sound, community, memory, and the lives behind the music, preserved while we still have the chance. Produced by Lori Branch and Hannah Viti. Funded by a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events.
Episodes
“A Job in the Business”
Vick Lavender has never taken the easy road. Born in Louisiana, and raised on Chicago's west side, he came up on dub tapes, Italo, and New Wave records before deep house had a name. DJ, producer, label owner & co-owner of Bridgeport Records, every step has been deliberate and every move a natural progression. He has never been in a rush. He has never been satisfied either.
Karen Gordon 'aka Dajae' grew up in West Englewood on Chicago's South Side. Music was in the house. Her father, Reginald Gordon, was a doo-wop singer who performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. She had the family gift and her mother nurtured it, but Karen's path to it was long and unsteady. She spent years practicing alone, singing background for Jive Records, earning a gold album on a Will Smith record, and auditioning fo...
Toni Shelton, known throughout Chicago as Disco Tony, has been throwing parties since 1979. As the city's first solo female house music promoter, she's built a legacy that spans over four decades: the flyers with her face on them, the DJ battles, the iconic all-white parties that have brought Chicago's South Side community together for twenty years run...
Some of the best history gets told between old friends. Before there were house music producers, there were kids in basements with cheap turntables and cheaper cassette decks, staying up all night trying to get the pause button just right. Craig Loftis was one of those kids.
Without Robert Williams, there may be no house music, or at least not as we know it today. As the founder and owner of the legendary Warehouse club, the space where Frankie Knuckles first DJ'd and where a genre was born, Robert is one of the most important figures in the culture's history. And yet his full story, from foster care in Chicago to the backrooms of New York's gay nightlife scene, then back to Chicago becoming politicall...
In this first episode of House Music Chicago Testimony, host Lori Branch tells her own story — from growing up on Chicago's South Side to becoming one of the first female DJs on the emerging house music scene in the early 1980s. She shares what it felt like to stand on stage, heart pounding through her shirt, at her first DJ battle. And she introduces the community of friends, mentors, and pioneers you'll hear throughout this seaso...
Before we even called it house music, these people were living it. In Season 1 of House Music Chicago Testimony, host Lori Branch sits down with five legends who were there at the very beginning. Robert Williams, the man who opened the Warehouse and set everything in motion. Craig Loftis, the producer and DJ who was in the booth with Frankie Knuckles and helped shape the sound from the ground up. Toni Shelton, known as Disco Tony, ...
Every story about Chicago house music starts somewhere different. A record, a club, a night that changed everything. Host Lori Branch, a South Side-born DJ and historian who was there at the beginning, invites you into a series of intimate conversations with the pioneers who built the genre. House Music Chicago Testimony is a living archive of sound, community, and the lives behind the music, preserved while we still have the chanc...
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