Frankie Knuckles, 1955-2014 – an appreciation by Terry Farley

Last Saturday night, Pete Heller and I had the honour and pleasure of warming up for Frankie Knuckles at the Ministry of Sound in London. On Tuesday morning, I awoke to the numbing news that Frankie had passed away on Monday afternoon at his home in Chicago.

My mind quickly went back to Saturday night, when Frankie had arrived in the DJ booth as we were playing. He gave us a warm welcome with his amazing smile, but he somehow seemed distant and reflective. Since his passing, friends have told me they knew he was very ill and was close to not flying to England last weekend. I dearly wish someone had made us aware of this. While we played he sat quietly on a stool, flashing that smile whenever old friends or fans came up to greet him, but you could sense something was wrong.

I'm gutted I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him properly last Saturday and wish him a safe journey home. As I was leaving, Frankie was deep in the mix, and after waiting a while to see if the moment was right, I decided to slip off and not disturb the maestro while he was at work, sending the very young dancers in front of him into raptures. I've learned never to take it for granted that there will be a next time to show some love.

My relationship with Frankie goes back a long way. Twenty-five years ago, Frankie championed the early music Pete and I made and released on Junior Boys Own. He turned two British suburban white boys who were obsessed with New York club culture into DJs who got to travel the world – simply by his patronage. I'll never forget going in to a Tokyo record store and seeing a remix of Millionaire Hippies [aka DJ Danny Rampling] that Pete and I had done displayed in a prominent position on the wall, on sale for what seemed like an extraordinary amount of yen. I asked the guy behind the counter to translate the Japanese description on the front of the record and he said, "It says: 'Frankie Knuckles played this last week at Yellow.'" That was all they needed to say, and it was more than enough for me and Pete.

Frankie Knuckles was a native New Yorker born in the Bronx in 1955 and he probably had more "house" credentials than anyone else in dance culture today. He started out playing soul and funk records at the hedonistic and decadent Continental Baths, a gay sauna in an Upper West Side hotel basement, alongside his teenage friend Lawrence Philpot (who later changed his name to Larry Levan and became synonymous with NYC's Paradise Garage). In the late 70s Frankie moved to Chicago to become resident at the Warehouse club, the club that gave house music its name and its soulful side.

In the 80s, Frankie became the first dance music superstar DJ. He played worldwide, at clubs such as the Haçienda in Manchester and Delirium in London. More famous residencies in NYC followed, at seminal clubs such as the Sound Factory, where Frankie would preach to his disciples from Saturday night through to mid-Sunday morning, with his trademark gospel vocals, tough basslines and beats programmed to make you a better dancer than you ever imagined possible. The crowd were predominately gay and black, plus the famous Voguers and joined around 4am by dancers from Broadway, whose high kicking and twirls would cause dance-offs around the floor. This was New York's last golden clubbing period before gentrification and Mayor Giuliani tore out its hedonistic soul… Frankie provided the soundtrack.

Later, he took no notice of the plastic EDM world, with its naff 18-30 antics and its overpaid, underskilled DJs crowd surfing, chucking cakes about and generally acting like idiots. In Frankie's world the focus of the party was the centre of the dancefloor. He was the godfather of house but for Frankie it was about the music he played, not about him.

He provided the soundtrack to most of my life and to that of many, many others around the world. Last week, Facebook was full of tributes from world-famous DJs and big-time promoters, as well as ordinary fans and bedroom DJs. Had he met them, Frankie would have treated them all the same.

Terry Farley is a DJ and co-founder of Boys Own/Junior Boys Own