A movie about Frankie Knuckles, better known as the godfather of Chicago house music, is in the offing.
Producer Robert Teitel (of the “Barbershop” franchise) is teaming up with with Chicago club owner Joe Shanahan, nightlife impresario Billy Dec and entertainment attorney Randy Crumpton for a film about Knuckles and city’s after-hours club scene in the ’70s and ’80s, primarily at The Warehouse, the club where house music took root and derived its name (“house” being a shortened version of “Warehouse”).
Knuckles, who died March 31 at 59, moved to Chicago in the late 1970s and “developed a reputation as one of the city’s most influential dance-music tastemakers,” Tribune rock critic Greg Kot wrote in the DJ’s obituary, noting that Knuckles “arrived in Chicago just as disco was losing steam.”
No director has been named. According to producers, the film will “pay tribute to the life story of The Warehouse owner Robert Williams and the legacy of Knuckles’ timeless artistry.” Dec is also slated to act in the film as well, however no other casting has been determined.
Knuckles’ innovation was to mix soul and R&B records, turning them into dance tracks with drum machines to emphasize the beat, according to Kot: “In addition to building dynamic ebb-and-flow sets that would keep his dance floor filled from midnight to noon on weekends, he would create theater-of-the-mind scenarios with inventive sound and lighting. ‘Sometimes I’d shut down all the lights and set up a record where it would sound like a speeding train was about to crash into the club. People would lose their minds.'”
Perhaps not surprisingly, considering Shanahan and Dec’s involvement, the movie will have a kickoff party March 31 at The Underground. (The party is atypical in the indie film business, when marketing events are typically done after a movie is made). Tickets are $20 and all the proceeds will benefit the Frankie Knuckles Foundation. Go to TheUndergroundChicago.com.
nmetz@tribpub.com
@NinaMetzNews
