Marshall Julius Jefferson (born September 19, 1959) is an American musician, working in the

house music House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground ...

subgenres of

Chicago house Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music of DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture History and origins D ...

and

deep house Deep house is a subgenre of house music that originated in the 1980s, initially fusing elements of Chicago house with the lush chords of 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. Its origins are attributed to the early recordings of Larry Heard ...

Biography

Sometimes known as the father of house music, Jefferson was originally a record producer in the Universal Recording Studios in Chicago, where he met the owner of Trax Records, Larry Sherman. Jefferson's 1986 single for Trax, " Move Your Body", the first house song to use piano, was a popular and influential song in the genre. During the late-1980s heyday of house music, he recorded solo and collaborative material under various names such as Virgo, Jungle Wonz, Truth, and On the House. Jefferson's deep house productions include songs by CeCe Rogers and Sterling Void, and

Ten City Ten City (derived from ''intensity'') is an American, Chicago, Illinois-based R&B and house music act, that enjoyed a number of club hits and Urban radio hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was one of the first exponents of deep house. ...

's first two albums. In March 1987, the British music magazine ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' reported that Jefferson and

Frankie Knuckles Francis Warren Nicholls Jr. (January 18, 1955 – March 31, 2014), known professionally as Frankie Knuckles, was an American DJ, record producer, and remixer. He played an important role in developing and popularizing house music, a genre of mus ...

were in the UK for the first house-music tour. "Move Your Body" appeared in the video game '' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'', playing on house-music radio station SF-UR. This song also appeared in

Michael Winterbottom Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—''Welcome to Sarajevo'', ''Wonderland (1999 film), Wonderland'' and ''24 ...

's film '' 24 Hour Party People'' and in the 1991 documentary film '' Paris Is Burning''. Jefferson took a break from music in 1990, then returned to DJing in 1993. He moved to

Billericay Billericay ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Basildon in Essex, England. It lies within the London Basin, east of the City of London. The town was founded in the 13th century by the Stratford Langthorne Abbey, Abbot of West Ham, ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

where he had a five-year residency with the Tribal Gathering and Big Love events. Jefferson now lives in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, England and released a remixed version of "Move Your Body" (credited to Marshall Jefferson x Solardo, with the latter being a Mancunian production duo made up of Mark Richards & James Eliot) in 2019. The remix was certified Silver by the

British Phonographic Industry BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited, trading as British Phonographic Industry (BPI), is the British recorded music industry's trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards; is home to the Mercury Prize; co-owns the Official Charts C ...

(BPI) in 2023. In 2021, he teamed up again with Byron Stingily to release "Be Free", the first single in 25 years to be credited to Stingily's house music group

. Jefferson is featured in Episode 3 of the 2024

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series ''Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution''.

References

External links

Marshall Jefferson
at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

Video: Paul Morley interview with Marshall Jefferson, ''The Observer'', 2010
*
Marshall Jefferson 2012 audio interview at Soulinterviews.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson, Marshall 1959 births Living people DJs from Chicago Acid house musicians Deep house musicians American dance musicians American house musicians African-American DJs American expatriates in the United Kingdom 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people American electronic dance music DJs