3.1.10. ’Jackin’ Makes it onto Vinyl

18 June 2021

‘Jackin’ as a dance phenomenon grew, and by 1985 and the term ‘Jackin’ would make its way onto vinyl thanks to a local DJ called Chip E (Chip Eberhart). Eberhart was still at school when he started DJing. He thought he could make tracks as good as the ones he was selling, so he sold his equipment to pay for studio time. His first effort, ‘Jack Trax’, was recorded with Joe Smooth (Bidder, 2001, p. 46). The pair came up with some rhythms and a bassline but were searching for something to say over it, and Smooth ended up saying, “Time to Jack”, and he slow pitched his voice down a bit. ‘Jack Trax’ captured the raw energy of Hardy’s dance floor and sold half of its initial 500-copy pressing on the first day. It formed the bare-bones for simple constructed and sample-heavy ‘jackin’ tracks to come, by the likes of Fast Eddie and later, Steve “Silk” Hurley. Due to the huge success of ‘Jack Trax’, Chip E and Joe Smooth signed a relatively new label in Chicago called DJ International that provided the only real competition to Trax Records (Bidder, 2001, p. 47). 

3.1.11. DJ International

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