I was doing a little bit of net research on Ron Hardy over the weekend because of all the DJs on the Deep House Page, his mixes (and there are fortunately a lot of them!) really hit the sweet spot for me.
I don't think there was any one moment, DJ or record that "started" house, it just evolved out of the post-disco scene. Likewise, "techno" in the late 1980s generally meant a Detroit-style house remix or, of course, the home-grown efforts by The Three and others. The "techno" mix on a lot of records from that time, while varying somewhat from the smoother Chicago style, would be considered "house" today, and a lot of house from the mid-1980s would probably be called disco today by those who don't know the difference :) (Think "Love Can't Turn Around" for example.) House split several ways in Chicago as well -- toward the tracky stuff, acid house, hip house, and the raw street sound of the early Dance Mania. And the melodic disco-flavored approach favored by GU and others in Chicago and Beatdown Sounds in Detroit these days has always been there. There are many who say "Let No Man Put Asunder" was the first house record. To my ears, it's really disco, but obviously it was hugely influential (and endlessly sampled right up to today). The first track that really -sounds- like house to me is Kool & the Gang's "Open Sesame" which has that big booming drum track and is quite a bit faster than the disco of the time (1976). It's just as well that house has its own creation myth, because no one man owns house music, and as I told you before, this is our house and our house music. :) -- fh
