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Incredible as it seems, this year marks twenty years since the launch of Johnny D'Mairo's Henry Street Music label. To celebrate, BBE is marking the occasion with a sumptuous 3LP retrospective, a fitting tribute to one of the most important of all house labels.
HENRY STREET MUSIC –TWENTY YEARS OF FIERCE HOUSE MUSIC
Incredible as it seems, this year marks twenty years since the launch of Johnny D’Mairo’s
Henry Street Music label. To celebrate, BBE is marking the occasion with a sumptuous fivedisc
CD retrospective, a fitting tribute to one of the most important of all house labels. This is
one of the most extensive grand summations yet done of a dance label.
Henry Street Music exemplified its era as much as Trax and Nu-Groove had theirs. Come the
mid-‘90s, the disco cut-up became ubiquitous, as thousands tried to emulate the success of
Henry Street’s first big killer, The Bucketheads’ Tha Bomb –still a dancefloor staple two
decades on.
Many of the movers and shakers of the day had their best moments on Henry Street, and
they’re all here: Johnnick, Armand Van Helden, DJ Duke, DJ Sneak, Dirty Harry, Davidson
Ospina, Todd Terry, Mateo and Matos, Brutal Bill, Josh Wink, even the UK’s own Ashley
Beedle, and many more –a veritable roll-call of the premiere-league of dance at the time, an
era when dance music still seemed incredibly fertile and the link with its own past was still
vital.
Some of the American originals can struggle to get props among the countless mutations of
house out there vying for attention in today’s digitalized dance scene, but the real househeads
always knew to check them, and will recognize this as quality product, through and
through.
Henry Street (named after Brooklyn homeboy Johnny’s neighbourhood) always had a ‘New
York’ vibe, and even when drawing its producers from further afield, the label encapsulated
the city’s melting-pot of talent and raw, bristling energy... energy captured here, and exploding
off these remastered tracks like it’s 1999 all over again!
Alongside the massive dancefloor anthems from the likes of Kenny Dope and Armand Van
Helden are some real gems that got away, some exclusive mixes, and the thoughts of Johnny
D, one of the prime-movers of the New York dance scene even before he came up with his
own label, responsible for countless hits as promotions man and as dance A&R at Atlantic.
Never one for the limelight, Johnny’s own story is nonetheless inextricably bound up with the
transition from disco through house to the ubiquity of dance music today.
So... dust off those dancing shoes, and get ready to feel the heat, it’s one more time for the
Henry Street Hustle! |
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