Ring in 2026 with Marshall Jefferson and Kevin "Mega" McFall! WE LOVE HOUSE MUSIC!!

Introduction

0:00Evening to you, these guys are all big influences on me and certainly house music

0:24No, that's that does not sound like a lot of walk around with it collar popped up

0:31So let's let's go on that I want to talk a little bit about each each of your illustrious careers Because you guys have done a lot of you've done a lot all three of you have done amazing You know have had amazing contributions to what we call house music You know this is the vintage house show and so part of what that is about is celebration and preservation This is Lawrence Braydening with the celebration and preservation of Chicago house legends and Chicago house music And I think

1:01And I think That's a big part of the game And I think That's a big part of the game So let's go on that That's a big part of the game On the right side of the game I think I think You know Thank you.

Marshall Jefferson Introduction

1:44All right. All right. It's your main man, Kevin Mega McFall here with another episode of the Vintage House Show. But tonight is not just any other episode. Tonight, we're closing out the year with a special guest, someone who is, I'll use the words, iconic, legendary, and certainly one whose stamp on house music is indelible. I'm talking about the one and only Marshall Jefferson.

2:15Now, the Vintage House Show has gone 10 years, 10 years we're celebrating, capturing the first person narratives of many of the house music icons, pioneers, and legends. And I'm honored tonight to have with us Marshall Jefferson, who I have pursued for some time. And I'm honored and thrilled to introduce him to the audience tonight, to not share the story about the house music anthem, but to allow you to get to know who Marshall Jefferson is.

2:59With that, and without any further ado, buckle up. Your main man, Mega, would like to bring forth Marshall Jefferson. How are you, sir? I'm all right. How are you? Well, I am, again, thrilled to have you here on the show. I'm thrilled to have an opportunity to talk to you and to share with our audience a lot about who you are and your Chicago roots.

Early Life

3:33And so this will be a chronological discussion. We're going to start off with the early days of Marshall Jefferson from your neighborhood. Where did you grow up? And of course, where did you attend high school? So I'll let you start. I started out on the South side. I had hay fever really bad. I remember going to nursery school and I had a bad hay fever outbreak.

4:09And one of the kids said, I saw somebody just like that. You know, my eyes were red and I was crying and stuff. And he said, yeah, his eyes turned red, too. And they fell right out of his head. And then he died. And of course, you know, that trauma.

4:29That's what that's one of the earliest memories. But I grew up a few years later when I was eight years old, I had a paper route. I ride a ride on my bike delivering newspapers and my parents weren't worried about me getting snatched off the street or, you know, like like nowadays, you don't want your kid to leave the block, you know, and I would, you know, go to the neighborhood. I deliver papers. I do collections on the weekends and stuff. I collect the collect the money and.

5:09And. Yeah, I had a little grind to deliver delivering newspapers and also in the wintertime was really good. I really cashed in. I would charge a quarter to shovel the snow, you know, out of people's. What what neighborhood was this, Marshall? This was a. I don't know what neighborhood, what it was called, but a south side, west side, south side, south side.

5:41And apparently. Barack Obama lived in that neighborhood about. Eight blocks away from me. You lived in the same neighborhood as the 44th president of the United States. How about that? Well, I don't know. I never saw. But apparently. Yeah.

6:09And. And. I don't know if it was concurrently or not, you know, OK, I just heard that. Did you know any of the neighbors you shoveled snow for or whose papers? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So some of the neighbors are a lot of the neighbors. I knew some of them I didn't when I ventured off my block, my immediate block, you know, and I got greedy and I went, you know, down the down the street next block in the next block after that.

6:39And I mean, I racked up them quarters. And. Would it be fair to say that you've been entrepreneurial your whole entire life? Not my whole life, but a good portion of it. I was, you know, I was trying to make money. I make make money. I could buy records and stuff. I could buy, you know, a lot of things.

Comic Books and Music

7:06I bought comic books, I bought records and, you know, just candy and stuff like that. What was your favorite comic book? And then I'm going to rapid fire with what was your favorite candy from back? Um, now I'm later with my favorite candy, my favorite comic book. Ooh, anything Marvel Marvel. But, uh, uh, but when I was younger, when I was younger, anything, anything Marvel.

7:38But, uh, later on it got real heavy. Uh, there was a series, Adam Warlock. And that was the heaviest thing, man. Oh, it was so heavy. It was, it was really good. Talk about how that made you, you feel there. Adam Warlock. Oh, yeah. Oh. Okay. Sum it up. Uh, he comes out, he comes out of a cocoon, right?

8:10Yeah. He sees injustice all, all around him. You know, people, you see slavery and, and people being, uh, you know, there's a tyrant in charge of the universe. Right. And he's called the magus. Right. And, uh, he, uh, he decides he, he, he, he has these great powers and he decides he's going to fight against the magus and injustice and tyranny. Right.

8:40Right. Now, uh, he meets Thanos. Right. Who, you know, and they know, and, and, and Thanos helps him right now. At that time, Thanos considered himself the God of death. Right. Because he, he, he, he, uh, met the lady death and he decided to kill off the entire universe as a, as the only fitting gift for the love of his life, the lady death.

9:10Right. So, okay. Now he, he does all this stuff. The magus specifically tells everybody not to kill him for some, some reason. And then you find out that the magus is Adam Warlock 500 years in the future. Oh, wow. So he can't kill himself. You know, he can't kill himself and stuff, but, uh, you know, he, he beats, he beats Warlocks, but, you know, and he beats Thanos, but while he's at it and stuff.

9:45Well, it's, it's heavy, man. Right. Because like when he kicks Thanos' butt, you know, he says he's the God of life because life is mad. Right. He's mad because life is mad. Right. And, and, and he's talking all this stuff while he's kicking Thanos' butt, like treating him like a stepchild. I'll pop, pop, pop. He said, he said, uh, uh, and so it was the God of life against the God of death. It was heavy.

Influences and Interests

10:15And I, I, I'm, I'm still digesting it. I've nerded out, but it was heavy, man. It was heavy. But I love this because would you, I mean, you're nerding out in this moment about Marvel comics. Yeah. They, well, you know, they touched upon it in the Avengers, uh, movie. They did. With it. They just touched, you know, they, they, they didn't, uh, have Adam Warlock there or anything.

10:45You know, it just, they left out a whole lot, but you, you, you know, you, you, yes. They left out a lot. But this clearly influenced you early in life. Right. But yeah, there's still a attachment. It sounds like to the, to these narratives that are alternate narratives to the sort of daily reality that we all live in.

11:20Well, I had a lot of realities, man, you know, it's like, okay, there were a lot of Black Panthers in my family. Okay. Tell us about that. Including, including Bobby Rush, who eventually became leader of the Black Panthers, uh, Chicago chapter. Right. Okay. Then my father was a policeman, you know, and, and he was basically the peacekeeper for the, for the neighborhood. You know, nobody would mess with me and my brother because, you know, we had Black Panthers and, and police and stuff in the family.

11:54You know, they say, don't mess with them. Right. So, uh, love that. Um, that's the dichotomy household, right. That you lived in. On, on top of that, I was in the rock and roll. Okay. Well, you know, so WLS radio, did you listen to WLS or another station? Uh, uh, the loop.

12:26Yeah. I was going to say the loop. Kick-ass rock and roll. Yeah. On the 8.7. But, but before the loop was WLS. Before the, the loop, the loop, uh, shoot, uh, I mainly bought records, man. You know, uh, first, first, uh, album I bought was Led Zeppelin II. I eventually went back and, uh, got Led Zeppelin I, but I was a big Led Zeppelin fan.

12:56I saw them at Chicago stadium in 1977, uh, two nights in a row. Wow. And, uh, you know, get, get the tickets. Everybody, you, you listen to this and say, yeah, you know, there's no big deal. But, uh, uh, the second show, Jimmy page. Yeah. Uh, he threw up on stage and they, they had to cut this, this, the show store. Sure. Right.

13:26So they gave us these rain chicks, right? They said, next time Led Zeppelin comes into town, you know, you give us a rain check and you, you get a free ticket and stuff. So I kept held onto that rain check. Of course, uh, 19, they didn't come back to Chicago until 19. Well, they, they were scheduled to come to Chicago in 1980. And John Bonham, the drummer died who broke up, but I still had that rain check, which was stolen from me later. That's another story. Oh, okay.

13:56We'll, we'll circle back. Um, you asked for it. You got it. I'm, I'm, I'm with you. I'm with you. And I'm wanting to know if you are able to share.

Education and Career

14:11Your, uh, your elementary school and your high schools. Where did you attend? I attend Rudyard Kipling elementary school. Rudyard Kipling. Did you read the jungle book in, in any of his books? Yeah. Yeah. A whole bunch of stuff. That was probably mandatory reading at, at Rudyard Kipling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I went to Rudyard Kipling.

14:41Wasn't an outstanding student. Uh, I had a, I had a high IQ. And, uh, that was the only reason I, I got through grammar school without failing. Cause you know, the, uh, the teachers, uh, felt like if, if, if, uh, if I was, uh, if I was failed, it was their fault, you know, because I was right.

15:12Right. Naturally you were an intelligent, but you know, some, some of the teachers wasn't, uh, playing that crap. You know, it seemed like every odd year I was close to failing. I got bad grades because I wouldn't do homework at all. Okay. I was out of school. I was out. I didn't, I didn't want any parts of any hot, uh, homework. I was playing with my friends and that was that right now the, uh, even years I had teachers that didn't require homework.

15:44Okay. For some reason. Right. Yeah. And, and, and they just give the test and I aced the test. Right. Got, got excellent grades, but the odd years that you got to do homework. Yeah. Yeah. That's torture. He hasn't, he hasn't do some more schoolwork, but you know, I listened to you in class. I know what's up, you know, but like the, the years that I, I had to do homework.

16:15I got bad grades. Seventh grade. I almost failed. I almost failed. Right. That was Ms. Bryant. And, uh, what was it about seventh grade? Cause that's a, that's a critical year. Like that's the year you're supposed to prepare for high school. Essentially. Uh, one thing I was distracted. Ms. Bryant had the most gigantic boobs I'd ever seen. I was, she was a voluptuous teacher. Yeah. She, she, she, and another, another thing I just would not do homework.

16:48And she wasn't playing that. She was about to fail me. But coincidentally, at the, at the end of the year, they had this thing called the math down. Okay. Uh, which was a math contest and stuff. And, and you know, all the, all the smartest students get in the math down. I got in the math down and I won it. So they couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't fail the math champion. You know what I mean? So that, that got me out of seventh grade.

17:19That saved your eighth grade. Eighth grade. Yeah. Uh, eighth grade, Ms. Myers. She didn't, she didn't, uh, uh, base grades on homework. I was good. Got, got, uh, great grades again. Graduate. Okay. So you graduated from grade school. I survived seven. So you see seventh grade was a survival, uh, mission. But when you graduated from eighth grade, were you at least excited about high school and

17:51the social, did you do any sports or band or? No, I didn't do anything. And I didn't do anything in high school. Um, nothing. No, I got robbed a few times. Uh, well, I went to Lynn bloom at first. And, and, uh, I, there was this guy, Leroy Fennell. He, he had cousins in the neighborhood. I didn't, we didn't know that right. But he, he would take all the nerves out and get us robbed. He said, let's walk around the school, you know, on lunch breaks.

18:24And they would, and they would rob us. It was a setup. Wow. It was a setup. From your own classmate. Yes. Yes. Yes. Now that was Leroy, Leroy Fennell. But, uh, yeah. You ever run into Leroy? I ran, I ran into Leroy. You know, I ran into Leroy years later. And, uh, yeah. Say hi to him. Uh, I bet you he regretted it a little bit now.

18:54No, hell no. No. Okay. So you said you started at Lindblom Tech.

High School and Post Office Job

19:04I started at Lindblom. I graduated from Central Y High School. Tell me a little bit about Central Y High School. Was that in Chicago? I went to Central Y, uh, uh, for summer school. Okay. Because I failed some classes at Lindblom and I had to catch up. Uh, I like Central Y a lot. And, uh, and, uh, after, uh, uh, after doing the summer there, I said, hey, well, I like the school better than Lindblom.

19:43I'm going to go here. And I wound up graduating from Central Y. Uh, I'm, I'm just not familiar with Central Y. Why, but. Central YMCA High School. Okay. I didn't know they had high schools with the Y. What, what part of town was that located? Do you remember? It was downtown Chicago. See, that was another thing. Uh, I really love, uh, downtown Chicago at that time in the seventies.

20:14Yes. Much better than that. Uh, much, much better than Inglewood. Inglewood. Where Lindblom was located. Yes. So. The heart of Inglewood. Yeah. The heart of Inglewood. So I, I, you know, I liked downtown. I could go to the movies. I could go, you know, it, it had a lot of restaurants. And by that time I was a bus boy and a, a dishwasher. So you were. I graduated. I graduated from, uh, paper boy to bus boy and dishwasher.

20:47So I went. While you were still in school. While I was still in school, I went through this agency called Armanakis employment agency. And they would send me out, uh, to, you know, their restaurants. Who had, you know, like somebody missing or something. And I will, I will work there. And, uh, you know, I, I've replaced the bus boy or the dishwasher for a day. So staff augmentation, I guess. Yes. We'll call it.

21:17Yes. How did you like that? Um, it was all right. And, you know, it, it was making money. It was a job. You know, I, I, I, I needed, I needed money. Especially since I got in central. Why they will let you smoke cigarettes in class. You know? So I was getting high back there. So this was definitely the seventies. Yes. It was definitely the seventies. And I was, you know, I had to, I had to have my weed money and my alcohol money.

Substance Abuse and Recovery

21:52And, uh, but, but you were under age. I mean, smoking and drinking while. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Like, uh, like I'm amazed by that. Clearly, um, you were, uh, certainly in, in Chicago mode because Chicagoans, we are, uh, hardy. Substance abusers.

22:23Well, I, I, I, I use the term Hardy because there's nothing much that can really affect us. Well, uh, you know, uh, I guess I learned my lesson because I stopped drinking, uh, in 86. Okay. And I, I, well, I stopped everything in 86 because when move your body came out everywhere I went, you know, I got free everything. You know, we would run around performing and, you know, backstage, they had everything.

22:55You want this, you want to blow, you want this, you know, I said, well, if I keep doing this, I won't be alive long. So I stopped everything, even smoking cigarettes and good for you. I'm alive. So good for you. Yes. Thankfully you are here. And, you know, we're, uh, speaking to Marshall Jefferson here on the vintage house show. We're not taking the normal path of asking him about, you know, and that we wanted to learn who Marshall Jefferson is.

23:31And sure enough, there's so much to unpack about how you've come to this point in your journey. And you alluded to certainly move your body, the house music anthem globally known as, um, you know, one of the premier, uh, songs and records defining a genre. Essentially what you did, um, in between graduating from central Y high school and, uh, releasing this anthem.

24:11Okay. Also very interesting. And I've, I've heard the story, but I want to ask if you wouldn't mind sharing it with our audience tonight about how you worked.

Music Career Beginnings

24:23Um, besides being a bus boy and dishwasher, uh, there was a more, uh, permanent job, if you will, that you had. Well, uh, before that I went to Western Illinois, Illinois university and I boxed, uh, a box a little bit of boxing, uh, Chicago golden gloves. Um, I mean, I know this me and my brother, uh, boxing, uh, in the golden gloves. What's your brother's name? Scott Jefferson. Scott was, uh, runner up.

24:54I, I got, I got, uh, knocked out in the first one. No, not, I got knocked out in the third round, but, uh, I, I could, I couldn't dedicate myself to training, uh, like my brother, my job, my brother was chopping trees and everything, but I had a knockout punch. But, uh, you know, once I found out I had a knockout punch, I didn't really work out that

25:24hard anymore. So that was my downfall. Um, let me see. Western Illinois university. Western, I majored, I majored in accounting. Right. And, um, my third year, uh, I, uh, I applied for a job at the post office. Right. I started out making 19,000 a year. Yeah. Starting salary for an accountant was 12,000, 10 to 12,000.

25:57Right. So I looked at the way 12,000, 19,000. 12th. Okay. Bye bye. Accountant. Bye bye college. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to, uh, work in the post office and I go back to college later, which never happened. I didn't go back to college. And, you know, that was that. But it all makes sense that you would have selected accounting as your major. You were the math down champion.

26:29Um, so, um, analytical and mathematical mind applying, you know, that innate skill to crunching numbers. Well, it made sense, but the economics of the salary didn't. And so. I was also. A bowling champion in high school. A bowler and a box.

26:56Yes. A boxer. Right. Yeah. A, uh, Pilgrim Baptist church had a league. And, uh, my team came in first twice. And you were one of the star bowlers on the team. Uh, no, this guy named Keith was the star bowl. Well, I was just on the team. Okay. I was okay. But I was clutch. Do you, do you still bowl? I know bowling. Allies aren't as common these days.

27:27Do you still bowl when you get a chance? No, I haven't bowl in decades. I mean, what do you do when you're not in the studio for fun? Uh, this and that, uh, various things. I, uh, I listened to, I listened to a lot of music and, uh, various things. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I'm, I'm gonna put this out there, you know, next time you're, uh, in Chicago and

28:02have some free time, we should go bowling. Oh, okay. We should go bowling. I wonder how I would do, you know? Right. That's, hey, you don't know until you get back in the alley. I'm not, I was a mediocre bowler, um, when I bowled as well. So we probably, you know, have pretty competitive. I think my average was like about one, one Oh five, one Oh six may have gotten as high

28:34as one 20, but I'm not sure about that. Oh man. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I was mediocre. Stay, stay tuned. Stay tuned. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to see if Marshall can get. Are there any bowling alleys left in Chicago? There are a few. There are a few. Is King, is King bulls still on a drive? Yeah. I, I don't think it's open any longer. No. No. I remember Palisade bowl and King bowl and starlight was where I, I grew up bowling.

29:10Oh, starlight bowl. Okay. Yeah. I remember starlight. Starlight was on one day on 95th street. It was, um, 80s off of 87th and cottage Grove. 87. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And it, it burned down a couple of times. But, uh, starlight, I remember starlight, starlight. Yeah. So yeah, it was in that, in this, uh, Chatham greater grant grand crossing area. And, um, and like boxing, I, have you ever shared that with others that you were a boxer?

29:47Uh, no, I don't think so. Got an exclusive here on the, I wonder if you can look up the, the golden gloves record. And find me there. Um, well, you said you got knocked out. Was that. Yeah. Third round. Third round. I'm going to put our researchers into action to see if they can come up with your, um, your standing and the guy's name who I fought.

30:18There, there are records of, um, you know, Chicago's golden. Yeah. So we'll, we're going to see what we can find out there. Yeah. Um, but you, you went then, um, to the post office opted out of accounting. You, uh, were you a leather carrier or a sorter? Uh, sorter. Uh, sorter. Uh, we were on these, uh, uh, machines, letter sorting machine.

30:51Uh, they call, uh, uh, I don't even remember the names of the machines, but, uh, we were, we were, we were on these big machines and they would sort the letters. And I worked on one machine with Curtis McClain. Who, who wound up singing the lead on move your body. Yes. And, uh, Kurt, me and Kurt worked at the post office. Um, uh, and, uh, yeah.

31:23Curtis is a friend of, uh, vintage house show. And, um, he's been on the talk about the story a bit, but the Marshall Jefferson perspective is important because I think you were the catalyst, right? For bringing the on house crew together. Is that? Yeah. On the house. We were on the house. Uh, we, uh, when Jessica saw this came out with the on and on, um, uh, that's what,

31:57that's what set us off. So about 1984, 85, 1984. Yeah. And that, that's when, uh, that's, that's when I, uh, when we put everything into motion,

On the House and Music Production

32:07I bought, I bought some equipment and, uh, and, uh, uh, but the first song I gave to Ron Hardy, I gave two songs to him. That was, uh, one was I've lost control by sleazy D. Mm. Another one was, uh, under eventually became under you by Virgo. Virgo. Virgo. Virgo.

32:37Yes. Uh, well, no, no, it wasn't Virgo track. I had a Virgo EP. Okay. Uh, uh, under, under you was originally titled the pleasure exchange. How did the name change? Uh, missing. Uh, I miss, uh, printed the, the label titles and stuff. Uh, I, I gave Larry Sherman the wrong titles. So everything changed its name. Wow. Yeah.

33:07That's amazing. So it was so Sleazy D was you. Sleazy D was Sleazy D, uh, rest in peace. Uh, Sleazy D was my friend. Okay. Okay. And, uh, you know, I was, I was working on, I was working on the song. Sleazy came in and started dancing. I said, just say, I've lost control. And I scream. I was like, ah, I've lost control. Uh, Sleazy said, I've lost control.

33:37I've lost control. And I said, ah, and it, that was, uh, the first, uh, song I gave Rod Hardy. Now, mind you, Rod Hardy, it was a smash at the, at the music box. The music box. Yeah. They would go off. And, you know, as soon as the cover on, they would stampede to the dance floor. Oh, right. So. Yeah. The, the experience at the music box was a frenetic experience.

34:07I mean, you did sweat it, right. You might as well then call it the sweat box. But, uh, the, um, alignment, right. Of that track. Little did you know when you all were creating it, right. That it would be a perfect fit for the music box. No, I knew it. You, you, you had that. I knew it. Yeah. But I love that. I knew it. And so what format did you get it to, to Ron? I gave Ron a vinyl reel to reel.

34:39I gave him a reel to reel. Okay. It was, uh, the pleasure exchange and I've lost control on one reel to reel. But this is after you had already gotten it to Larry Sherman. No, no. This was two years. This was two years before Larry. Okay. Yeah. All right. This is great. This is great. Is the, you know, uh, some of the timelines get altered, uh, and inverted.

35:12And, and it it's okay, except we want to get the story as close to accurate. Okay. Possible so that people who research and come to understand how some of the evolution of the house took place, right. They, they can have that accuracy and reflect it, um, in a way that, you know, history stands as accurate. And, um, you're, you're getting, well, our audience is getting the first person narrative from the

35:48man himself who, uh, released these tracks. So I, I skipped or we skipped a whole portion. You introduce the fact that you came to music and house music or music in general by way of hearing on and on by Jesse Saunders. Well, I was actually, I was DJ. Uh, that's the part. Yes.

36:18That's how I picked up the, uh, on and on in the record store. I bought it at Luke records and said, Jesse Saunders, hot, hot, hot. Now I knew Jesse Saunders as a DJ, of course. Okay. I said, wow, Jesse made a record, right. And I came and I said, oh, I can do better than this. And, and, uh, you know, so coincidentally, uh, you know, I went into the music store and, uh, and, uh, yeah, I, uh, uh, dude said, Hey, I had the thing.

36:53It's the sequencer. It's a Yomaha QX one. Now Vince Lawrence had already told me about the Yomaha QX one. And you guys were friends as well. You and Vince and you and Jesse. I, I saw, I saw the address to tracks. Well, not tracks records, but I think. The studio. The, well, it was, uh, it was on one of Jesse's records, right? I think it was precision records.

37:24I went down to precision records. I was welcomed by Vince Lawrence. Yeah. Like he was running things down there. Right. So Vince was telling me all about this stuff. I said, oh, okay. So, so, uh, I went to the view store. I got the, I got the QX one. I bought a whole bunch of gear. Uh, sales would joke. Hey, with this QX one, you can play like Stevie wonder, even if you don't know how to play at all. And, uh, I didn't know how to play at all. So that was right up my alley.

37:54Right. So, I mean, I believed them. They gave me, they gave me a credit line, me, me and Curtis, uh, credit, credit line. And we got all the equipment and, uh, yeah, we started making music. Amazing. So no formal training, which, you know, that that's been par for the course of a lot of, uh, uh, the house music pioneers, uh, you DJ.

38:25So you did have a baseline understanding of the four on the floor beat and, and beats per minute and chords and rhythms and melodies. No church time for you. Marshall. I went to print Pilgrim Baptist church. Pilgrim Baptist. Pilgrim Baptist church. Right on, uh, Wentworth there. I think across from. I think it was on Indiana. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. I don't think it's on Indiana. Like 30. Oh yeah. It's 35th in Indiana. Yeah. 31st in Indiana.

38:55Yep. Yeah. The Baptist church. I went to, and I was in the choir, uh, Pilgrim Baptist church. You sang. Yeah. I sang. But I mean, I was in the choir. I was background. I didn't do any lead vocals. Well, you put that disclaimer out there fast. So what, what timeframe. Was this for you? Were you a young adult at this point? Or was it early days beginning beginning of high school? Like I said. Okay. I was singing. I was singing. I was singing. I was singing.

39:25You sang. I was singing. Oh yeah. I was singing. I was singing. I was singing. I was singing. I was singing. Yeah. No, no, no. in pilgrim baptist church's bowling league that's right i i didn't make the i heard bowling i didn't hear yeah i went to i went to pilgrim baptist church it was they had a bowling league and i was in the bowling league and and my team came out in first place twice yeah over the three years that i bowled all right and and so we got the choir in now you spent church you you were time you spent time

40:07in church and um that is a key connector for uh many in the music business uh especially on the creative side uh thomas a dorsey was the uh was the head of the choir he's uh recognized as the founder of gospel music and thomas a dorsey you sang under thomas dorsey wow yes yeah i'm gonna need you

40:42to not um you know just put yourself in the background you were in the choir led by thomas dorsey yeah but uh you know that i that's my background so did you i wasn't doing no real were you baritone tenor in in one of those sections no i wasn't very well okay i'm i know i'm pushing i was just in the choir in the boundaries oh man but you how did you come to dj let's talk about

41:17that i was working at the post office i was rich i bought my decks man i bought thorns and then i bought techniques and you know i was off you know we we uh i was djing before uh you had direct drive you you know you you had the belt drips you were on the drive table yeah yeah and when i mean that was probably anyone who spun on belt drive um all power to you all uh because it's difficult i mean i i tried

41:54before i was able to get a pair of 1200 mk2s and uh that direct drive versus the belt drive is you're like rolling the rock up the hill to battle i spent i was spending about 175 dollars a week on records wow your budget was 175 back then this is like yeah late 70s early 80s huh i was making bank that 19 000 grew to well yeah it got up to 23 got up to 23 you know you had regular raises and

42:34stuff man the post office you know that that title was a life lifetime job man people you know uh yeah it was it was a good job yeah matt matt respect to to many i've had um people in my family that were lifelong um part of the postal system uh uh you you talk about it being a lifelong job but then something happened lightning struck yes

43:08i started i started putting out records and i wasn't really making i wasn't really making that uh i wasn't really making any money in fact i lost money uh paying for the pressing and larry sherman not paying me for the records so so uh you sort of had one toe in the water and one toe still in the post office uh

43:35very small toe in the post office i was when i got when i got in the music business i was in the music business you went all in and so you made a living from the records and still djing and touring i didn't make any money off of records until 1987. well now i didn't make any money off records period but i made money off tour uh doing move your body what was the first tour stop or show that you booked from that song

Touring and Performance

44:16uh i believe our first show was in elizabeth new jersey what was the name of butchie's club i forgot the name of his club oh but uh yeah we did it we did a show we had a show scheduled at the paradise garage uh but we canceled that uh what happened was uh we uh larry sherman had booked a an an entire east coast tour and uh we got with phil and phil balsano and frank rodrigo who were

44:54also manages steve hurley jamie principal and frankie knuckles and uh they basically told uh everybody on the tour uh if you don't send the money to us marshall is not performing now this the paradise garage show was significant because all of all of the record pools were going to be there all of them uh uh uh and you know it was a yearly event where you know the record pools made themselves

45:29a little bit of money you know and uh they were extremely pissed off that we missed that show they were calling us at home uh uh they were phone was ringing off the hook i said oh man i'm getting out of here i went over to curtis mcclain's house and they called us over kurt's house and man but anyway we can't we canceled the show because they told us canceled once we canceled paradise garage show everybody fell in line and sent phil and frank the money which we never received they kept it all but you know

46:04uh wow yeah uh uh uh rudy forbes rudy forbes who was one of the guys in on the house he kept asking for money because he was married right his wife said where's your money where's your money right so so frank pulled me aside he said rudy's not being professional he keeps asking for money i said well he's married give him his money while you had to give me my money too right they said you're not you'll never get a major label deal like this you know you're not you're not being professional

46:39you know f you you know i'm getting out of here you better give me my money and stuff he wouldn't give you my money he they kept the money man they had these bank accounts they had the marshall jefferson bank account they had an on the house bank account but we couldn't access it right these are the terrible stories of exploitation that between the surface as people i couldn't get out of my money i was i couldn't get at my money i was out of there right but did you at least did they cover the travel

47:15did you have lodging yeah we had travel uh they covered the travel and stuff they kept kept all the gig money man all the performance money that hurts that hurts yeah well it was 35 it was 35 000 man but like uh it was about 35 000 i estimated they they kept which was not that which was not that much they they got uh a couple of people i know for a few million ouch yeah yeah yeah remember they were doing

47:47a lot of remixes for major labels and that's when major labels were paying like like 20 to 50 50 grand per remix for remakes yeah you know so uh i i'm i'm okay with losing my little 35 000 and stuff at least they didn't get me for millions so you had this sort of first major experience touring you learned through the school of hard knocks it sounds like about you know really how to maybe structure even

48:24the deals with the booking agents we'll call them for now i know they were you know label guys and other uh people um so you took those lessons and you said yes to future shows how did you yes begin to get into the rhythm where yes now you got now getting now i'm getting paid well uh we just went through the

48:56booking agents that they were using they were using norby walters uh and uh and this other uh this other smaller agency and we just went through them and uh uh yeah we we did like at least 300 shows on the east coast uh we were playing all over there so so you know i gotta ask the question which often is asked and discussed here on the ben and child show but you went to the east coast and uh sure eventually

49:33over the pond uh yeah to europe what happened to the chicago performances

49:41they weren't paying any money they didn't have enough they couldn't afford us man uh uh what had what happened on the east coast you had the greatest club scene in the history of the planet because all of those clubs man uh the mafia was laundering money through so they have first first class lighting they had separate sound for for djs and live performances and and every place was total class

50:16uh those new york clubs were top notch man because like i said the the mafia was laundering money through them one year i believe it was 88 or 89 all the clubs closed down at the same time because the irs busted the mafia all of those clubs now each one of these clubs had had their own dj dj was getting three grand a night right the residents yeah

50:49the residents they would play the entire night and it was their club yes what i mean and it was first class every we went to each performance in a limousine you know all because they were the mob mob was laundering money through all these clubs right you you had you you you know you felt like a an artist you know they we went everywhere in the limo i haven't seen a well i've seen like one or two lit limos

51:20since 1989 right but it was it was it was every every gig was sending was picking us up in a limo but since the irs busted all busting the mafia and got them out of the clubs i haven't seen the limo since you know so and that's a little known fact they bust they closed down the paradise garage they closed down down all these clubs man and the only club left standing after that bait but that gigantic crackdown

51:57was the sound factory with junior vasquez factory yeah and they were cheap man i i i i heard like they're djs that get 10 10 20 000 a night they were playing at the sound factory for 50 oh man you know yeah highway robbery well that's because they weren't financed by the mob that's why they stayed open you know they weren't you know they didn't have that that money lottery going on

52:33that's why that's why that's why they were left standing well we're gonna put allegedly on all that and we're going to yeah that's allegedly we but you know that the dj fees significantly went down significantly that makes that makes sense now after after all those clubs closed totally makes sense um um so let's talk about the fact that then the east coast club scene sort of went dark yeah how did you

53:13get over to uh europe and and playing in um you know those markets because you know they're still chicago back here and you said yeah they couldn't afford they weren't they weren't paying they had substandard facilities we didn't have we didn't really have a significant mafia presence or gang or you know the rich people presence in the clubs in chicago you know they were pretty much you know you you had djs and

53:46they were underpaid and stuff you know that they didn't really they couldn't really afford to pay the djs like that in chicago but europe could okay let me tell you how how fees got high okay we're going to europe right in the beginning

54:11all of us were afraid of flying you know all of us okay so so you know you know move your body was what's hot as fish grease back in the day you know yeah we'll give you a thousand dollars to fly over to england uh to to perform and stuff and i said no i ain't flying all the way there it's tough enough flying to new york every weekend i'm not flying no eight hours eight to ten hours right they said

54:42but then they come back well we'll give you two thousand

54:49give you five thousand um we'll give you ten thousand where's my ticket

54:59man but that's how that's how everybody started getting paid a lot of money to come uh to go to europe uh to go to europe and coincidentally junior vasquez was also afraid of flying he took a another tier because 10 years after that he was uh he he was playing in wembley for a million he got paid a million

55:26and that took the bar up he got paid for a million in wembley stadium and the only person in that stadium when he performed was madonna it was completely empty wow yep but but everybody heard about him getting a million then you had the dj top 100 uh djs and next thing you know the top the number one dj started getting paid like a you know

55:55who who was that mix mag or no no dj magazine had the dj mag had the top 100 djs and the top top dj started the number one dj started getting a 100 000 a quarter of a million a night

56:19wow okay yeah so how many of those were black or brown

56:28carl cox yeah that was pretty much it they they have a few now jamie jones gets a lot uh you know black coffee black coffee gets a lot you know there are a few

56:46but uh you know not a lot well so so this is it is the music business and business can be

57:01challenging it can be unfair it can be uh structured and unstructured talk about how you view

Music Business and Legacy

57:10the music business today the music business today yes is overcrowded uh when i first started the music business today there were maybe 500 dance songs a week coming out so you would have hits right uh about 12 years ago beatport told me they were releasing 100 000 songs a week and that was uh i mean that was 12 years ago you know now it's probably probably everybody can make music

57:46everybody that buys a computer can make a song now you have ai going in it's easy a million a million dance songs a week so you got no more hits no more hits unless it plays on on rate radio

58:02there's no shelf life there's no no shelf life no sustainability all all these djs out here don't for some reason that they don't like playing the same record twice

58:17so that's another obstacle uh you know is is man it's it's tough out there anybody that makes it out of that gigantic pile uh you know like a million records this week four million record they have to compete with four million records released last month is you know you have to do do things and then everybody's laughing at the guy and the guys uh you know in the in the weird clothes and looking looking weird and

58:51doing stupid stuff but they made it out of the pack man so they they've differentiated themselves through exactly mix and and fashion and uh things that make them stand out yeah you know and their goal is to play in front of big crowds and make a lot of money and that's what they're doing you know and so so they're goofy but they're rich you know you know and of course we have cool djs that are broke as hell so you know would

59:23know would take your pick what what does marshall jefferson do to survive well coincidentally this the the overcrowding uh benefits me how's cause because you have a dj that's just starting out he has to compete with a million people i'm already house famous you know if they want to fill their club they book marshall jefferson right not the not the dj making new music who they've never heard of because he's

1:00:00competing with a million releases a week they they know me you know all all of us you you talk about david morales and todd terry or steve hurley or uh joe smooth you know we're all still working man because those are the names that fill the club because those are the names people recognized yes understand what i'm saying you have a new guy coming up and a million records and a million records a week coming out nobody knows him he's gonna have an empty club but marshall jefferson

1:00:36is the name they know it's keeping me working you see what i'm saying i follow i follow the logic i'm i'm telling you we're still man uh two weeks ago i played for 20 000 at o2 arena you know two weeks before that warehouse project 10 000 people packed sold out you know so

1:01:02they recognize the names how do you how do you protect your brand marshall no there's no i don't do anything i don't do it it's names that people recognize it is from back in the day we we didn't have that big crowd of that big huge pack of releases coming out to compete with i only competed with like a few people you know so and and i got my name out decades ago no you know what i mean

1:01:36i fully understand that this is the vintage house show so we that's we definitely understand if the vintage house show now if you had a dj uh uh state of grace right dj state of grace come out with a hot record but that nobody's heard but it's it's it's a great record yes him on here you got no

1:02:07viewers because nobody knows him because a million other songs came out there all the djs that do play them are not going to play them twice so how is he going to get a hit how is he going to get name recognition out of a million releases a week you see it's it's an uphill battle so you got no more no more no more stars coming out who are you going to book at your club

1:02:35yeah so you this point is is critical because it also speaks to how will the genre sustain right if if you know we're anchoring at least club bookings and even and interviews on legacy um impact how do we sustain this house music is the fastest growing music there is i heard across the globe yes that's the fact but you know how are you going to be a star people are

1:03:13going to continue to dance people the dance world is going nowhere now how to profit from it how to make money doing it that's the question you know that's the that's that's the difficult part it's always been uh the most difficult part frank frankly speaking and and i i actually have been working um over the course of you know my time with the genre to try to help create that infrastructure

1:03:49that business infrastructure infrastructure that enables people to make money from it and well you gotta have you gotta have hits man and and no doubt that's yeah there are no hits coming from the dance floor it's just too crowded and nobody supports records nobody supports records anymore yeah it's been a hit in well over a decade not a real not not a dance hit right except unless unless it played on the radio like daft punk you know but if it doesn't play on the radio you're not going to

1:04:24have a hit just plain as so i want to pivot to well it's really staying with the same theme here but social media has also enabled you can't necessarily make millions but certainly tick tock when we talk about the fastest growing genre house music being that genre enabled through tick tock well i'm not going

1:04:58to complain about tick tock or instagram i've had over a hundred million views this year yes i'm not i'm not suggesting you complain but i want people watching to understand this is one of the the um pivot points this is a tipping point rather of how you earn as opposed to how you've earned historically right yeah yes um well i get a lot more than i got back in the day okay can you do you actually go

1:05:39in or your representatives go in to tick tock and and negotiate the spin rate uh i think the stream rate sorry i think uh it has something to do with uh neighboring rights and publishing uh neighboring rights is uh

1:06:01is uh digital rights and then there's publishing rights which is songwriting rights yes you get paid you get paid for that and uh i you know i i get a little bit from that well so bmi ascap cssac uh bmi ascap cssac all that all that they're paying they're so they're still very um relevant in terms of helping artists uh get get paid oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and i mean even with

1:06:42you know back in the day right it used to be uh maybe the mechanical rights so how many records it's the same it's the same thing i think i think neighboring and digital rights are uh separate from ascap don't quote me on that but i believe so uh ascap is still mechanicals and and and stuff like that uh yeah and and um and rights associated with film film used to be sort of the aspiration right if

1:07:15you got your song on a a movie soundtrack you were sure to uh line your pockets a little bit more but that's not even as big anymore well it can be um you know uh it if something like for instance somebody sampled you think like john legend and kanye sampled me uh like 13 years ago yes and uh this well uh you

1:07:48know they paid they paid a big upfront fee and then uh uh name of song that they sampled video clash and the name of the song was uh made to love uh john john legend named his album made made made to love he did the made to love tour then the uh song got licensed for a chevy commercial that played on the nba finals and you know so that was quite lucrative you know and uh you know it all sometimes it all jumps off

1:08:25and and so yeah i mean but that's the to your point earlier that's sort of the nature of a hit right where it gets interwoven into you know popular culture yeah the thing is though john ledger got played on the radio heavy he he had radio um yeah behind him yeah yeah right but it is radio

1:08:56straight up dance floor hits you won't find okay it is is radio still important

1:09:05uh yeah very important i don't know who listened to the radio anymore but i think everybody you know everybody this is a spotify now or something but radio has gone down but it's still very powerful like i said yes you're not gonna have you're not gonna have a hit unless it plays on the radio but not a dance hit well any kind of hit it's got to play on the radio

1:09:29so we we've covered a little bit of technology and the business uh but there's a big piece you alluded to uh but i think we're gonna do this or um just a little while uh ago uh as well and then we'll we'll um move towards closing our our discussion but it's been a fascinating discussion but i want to get your opinion about um artificial intelligence and and platforms like suno and um you i mean you've

1:10:00already indicated hey you know the new the potential for a new hit to emerge in this sea of a million releases for the dance floor a week or you know some somewhere in that neighborhood it it's all sort of diluted right and and the dilution is coming even faster and more furiously with the advent of ai

1:10:31oh yeah they got some guy that was doing like 10 000 he put like 10 000 songs on spotify uh and all of ray ai songs and um and he was trying to get monetized yeah really quickly but and i think it it worked up to a point right i remember that story well uh well he got busted and uh and spotify's trying not to pay him now i don't know okay because i i suppose if i suppose they think if everybody

1:11:07releases like 10 000 so they got to come out of a lot of money you know yeah yeah that would break the bank bank yeah so they gotta they the books buck stops here they have to stop that

1:11:23um but is is ai unstoppable would you say yeah it's unstoppable yeah i kind of feel that um the guardrails are are not there yet yeah well technology doesn't go go backwards you know it's you know we're not going to be in covered wagons and stuff that is going to progress and i see a whole future for a for ai uh beyond the dance world beyond music uh man of course because well i don't want to get

1:12:01into this but uh yeah it's gonna re it's gonna replace humanity uh

1:12:10ai i see a day well well they already have uh elon musk in them they they've already and several other companies have come with the computer late link up to your brain yes and that where they can similar similar similar uh touch smell taste everything right i see a total recall situation coming where you can you know you can be anybody you want you to do anything you want to do just be a secret agent stuff a lot like that it's it's inevitable it's going to be within the next 20 years

1:12:47they'll be able to do that if if not sooner i i because the rate ai is going uh more like 10 years we should be there this this is the prediction you'll be able to purchase life after death they'll be able to keep your brain alive and keep you on uh uh on your own personal heaven you know who wants that who would want that i don't know rich people yeah sure you know there there were some uh uh indications

1:13:22of that on some hot mics at the was it the g20 or something uh some of the uh foreign dictators were talking about hey you know i can i can uh swap out body parts and well live a longer life and body parts is primitive that that's that won't that won't fit in that's too much trouble you have to have operations and stuff like that no i'm talking about population control uh i'm population control where

1:14:00you'll have an you'll be able to have an ai girlfriend or wife totally agreeable to everything you want or you know ai husband and that stops the reproduction right there it does dead in the time because because you know men men and women are too much trouble in relationships you know why not have somebody that does whatever you want them to do whenever you want it there's no you know there's no

1:14:37competition but that's that's uh uh so they they they think they think the the planet is overpopulated ai is going to wipe it out like that without firing a single shot boom you know people are going to stop reproducing and they're going to go for the ai partners we are um having a conversation with marshall jefferson uh creator of the house music anthem

1:15:11um who also are the courtesy to make that hit and he's spending time with us here on the vintage house show but we want to we will we want to ensure that you also have a chance to share what's next for marshall jefferson um i forgot i was gone what's next for me yes sir uh

1:15:42i don't want to say i don't want well no you know we're we're good for a couple of exclusives okay i'll okay what i'm going to do next year 2026 with marshall i'm going to sell my catalog did you just see the deal that the weekend did are you um familiar with how much did he get i'll send you the i'll send you the article um it was a creative deal wasn't a straight catalog sale he he

1:16:15he essentially sold the catalog with the ability to retain creative control and he's a an investor in the new ownership structure i'm rich enough to do that i'm you too could you too could do it it's just about having just a little enough leverage i don't want creative control i just want a large lump sum because you can have both yeah okay well if i can i i will see this is this is what i said my my role

1:16:57in trying to help this community and genre is to ensure that the same deals now of course the goal posts always move right when we're trying out the same you know tactics and in steps but we'll talk we'll talk about that um one more so you you did put it out there so anyone tuned in marshall jefferson may be repping his catalog but he's not gonna take

1:17:31the straight deal he's gonna strike a creative deal with any takers um those are my words not his uh for we we talked about the younger uh generations um and the potential right for the sustainability of the the genre because it is the world's fastest growing genre do you feel though that it's also vulnerable to to maybe morphing into something else i mean we've got

1:18:08hundreds of sub genres already uh but you know chicago house is the parent but do you see that that slipping away at all and how do we keep it from happening well uh the secret is to make quality music a great song is a great song you know no matter what genre it is i mean every every genre is

1:18:39start started started with a great song and and if it's if it's uh if it's good enough it'll start another genre you know that they like to separate stuff now you know something's completely different different if it's quality people will listen to it you know so as long as we keep the quality up we're we ain't going anywhere you know it will be here we'll be here to stay that that's a powerful and

1:19:16positive uh point of view marshall i want to thank you uh in earnest for thank you for having me man i i know i i know it's out said some things that are pretty whack but hey look i i asked you to tell us and show us who marshall jefferson is you are your authentic self with us tonight and i couldn't be more honored to have the authentic marshall jefferson right there's no publicist behind you whispering

1:19:52in your ear no manager it's just straight marshall i love it thank you thank you so when you're in chicago remember we're going to hang out for bowling um i'm not boxing with you uh at this point i'm not boxing anybody man i'll throw out my shoulder trying to punch somebody uh i i got to spend some time with you during the 40th um anniversary of that first house record and we did nascar

1:20:26um those were that was a good summer 2024 i i enjoyed that and it was monumental well hopefully we have a move your body anniversary next year let's do that um we're here to we're here to help uh we're here to advance the culture we're here to um reinforce the nostalgia of um you know all that took place in the the mind body spirit of chicagolans giving birth to this genre so uh thank you again for

1:21:01spending the time we are uh 10 years here at the vintage house show uh all right congratulations thank you you you are making our 10th anniversary uh you know this is a great tipping point so definitely appreciate the time that you spent and um the insights that you shared don't forget to check out marshall jefferson whenever he's back on tour uh we're here every wednesday night 10 p.m central time

1:21:39on the vintage house show uh you can catch us on podcasts everywhere and i know that you marshall have you you you're active on social so make sure you check out uh marshall jefferson on his socials on beatport on track source and uh wherever else you can find them are you on mixcloud and soundcloud

1:22:03i don't know i think i did i i think i did a couple of remixes on on soundcloud soundcloud i'm not sure about bigs cloud okay well maybe that's something else for 2026 for you i have a bunch of uh of uh mixes out um where can we check them out

1:22:27uh i did one for bbc i did different different radio stations i did before we'll we'll post them on our uh our facebook and instagram so that everyone tuned in can check them out um yeah yeah i'm so sorry man i don't really keep track of my uh things things like that i re and i really should uh you know career wise i should keep better track of these things so i could advertise properly properly promote them

1:23:00well we'll we'll also talk about um who your current publicist is and and maybe we can put you on the roster for uh uh our our agency and help help you out with that but until then i want to wish you uh happy holidays a happy new year same you brother um again looking forward to seeing you i'm gonna polish up the bowling ball so we can get ready and get out there on the alley last time i went bowling was with

1:23:36byron stingley b sting yes byron sting well we'll we'll invite byron as well gotta get byron to come with us this this will be an all-star bowling outing all right thank you marshall i don't want to keep you up much uh later i'm uh again honored and uh for everyone tuned in or listening via our podcast thank you for 10 great years of supporting the vintage house show uh remember house is a feeling

1:24:14thank you all thank you marshall thank you kevin talk to you soon all right speak soon

1:24:24thank you