Marshall Jefferson: “Most Americans still don’t know what house is”

Despite the craze for EDM that’s been sweeping the States in recent years, Chicago legend Marshall Jefferson insists most Americans still don’t recognise house beats when they hear them.

Speaking to Skiddle, ahead of his appearance at The Haçienda’s NYE event in Manchester – the city he now calls home – Marshall said: “The majority of people in America still don’t even know what house music is. I actually thought it would be held in higher regard, because I thought the music would be much bigger and more mainstream in America than it is.”

Jefferson was responding to the question of whether he remembered thinking during his early years, as a pioneer of electronic music and pivotal figure behind the acid house scene, that his efforts at the time would be appreciated by future generations. It’s not clear if his observation is one of surprise that what became EDM culture in the US didn’t happen on an even larger scale, or a refusal to accept the music that drives this movement as a form of house.

MJ agreed that the euphoria currently surrounding electronic music in America could be compared to that of his heyday in late 1980s, but noted: “now is the time for innovation in the songwriting itself and expansion beyond the dance floor,” adding that today’s young producers are “technically better at engineering than we were back in the day but, with the exception of guys like Deamau5, less involved musically; they’re more dependent on studio musicians.”

Marshall will appear alongside a number of his contemporaries, including East Coast veterans Frankie Knuckles and Todd Terry, and British dance innovators 808 State, Graeme Park and Allister Whitehead, on December 31st at Manchester’s Albert Hall.