'Godfather' of house music dies, aged 59

Frankie Knuckles, a pioneer of house music who also mixed records for the likes of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, has died at the age of 59.

The death of a man dubbed the "godfather" of Chicago house music was confirmed by his long-time business partner, Frederick Dunson, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday. Dunson said Knuckles died unexpectedly at home.

The cause of death for Knuckles, who was a guest DJ at the Ministry of Sound in London at the weekend, was not immediately known. Dunson said details would be released later yesterday.

After working as a club DJ in New York, Knuckles went to Chicago in the late '70s and forged his fame as one of the city's most influential dance music forces.

He arrived just as disco was dying out, a trend underscored when local DJ Steve Dahl blew up hundreds of disco albums.

"I witnessed that caper Steve Dahl pulled at Disco Demolition Night and it didn't mean a thing to me or my crowd," Knuckles previously told the Tribune.

"But it scared the record companies, so they stopped signing disco artists and making disco records. So we created our own thing in Chicago to fill the gap."

Knuckles would extend mixes of soul and R&B records and turn them into dance tracks, introduce new singles being produced by fledgling house artists and incorporate drum machines to emphasise the beat, the Tribune said.

By the late '80s, Knuckles and many of his peers were stars of Europe's emerging rave scene. He created "theatre-of-the-mind" scenarios with creative sound and lighting.