Master of the Arts

Paul resumed DJing and began to record his own tracks - the first of the hundreds of productions that make up the vast Paul Johnson catalog. He considered it a natural progression from beat mixing during his sets. He became known for a harder, edgier style of House that knowledgeable fans and DJs came to know after the first few seconds as the characteristic "Paul Johnson sound."

According to Glenn Underground, a friend since the 1980s, the two of them ushered in a new era of House using looped disco voice samples. "It was a sound that we coined together," he says. "Nobody has released more material in the city of Chicago than I have, but Paul Johnson is right on my heels. He's right there."

Frankie Vega, now marketing and distribution director at Sole Unlimited Distribution, was working at Hot Jams (now at 4814 S. Pulaski) in 1992 when the first tidal wave of Paul Johnson recordings hit the shelves. "In the first year of working at the store, one thing was clear: any Paul Johnson record that we had for sale sold and left the store just as fast as it arrived. I used to tell our customers, 'You don't even need to hear it. Just buy it because you and I both know that all his records are good and everybody is buying them!'"

At around the same time, Vega and Angel Alanis were throwing rave parties. "I first approached legendary rave promoter Roger Pedraza (RP Smack) of Ripe Productions with the idea to work top selling artists who were also DJs into rave parties," Vega says. "The music at the time was strictly techno, trance, break beat and some House. But when Paul Johnson hit the rave circuit he blew up! Before you knew it, one promoter after another was booking him.

"I mean to actually think back and understand that we were the first to have guys like Paul Johnson, Robert Armani, Felix Da Housecat and others playing our parties before anyone else in North America... That was really something!" It was something. It was the introduction of House music to a new generation that had never heard it - the same thing that had happened in Chicago ten years before.

A few years later, Paul hooked up with Relief and Cajual Records and released some of the imprint's seminal material, both original productions and remixes. Label owner, producer and DJ Cajmere/Green Velvet remembers loving an EP of Paul's on Clubhouse Records with the underground classics "I Feel Good" and "Nice and Fast". "He brought a lot of creativity to the labels," Cajmere says. "He's a very warm person and he really tries to be as positive as possible."

"It's in my head before I touch the equipment," Paul says of his writing process. "I can do a track in about 30 minutes. As I'm making the track, the vocals come to me and it goes from there."

In 1993, Paul brought Gant into the studio with him. There was no million-dollar rig behind his sound. "He had a mixing board and a Roland beat machine. That was it. It was about working with what you've got and making the best music out there with it."

Home & Abroad

From those beginnings came a string of hits in the 1990s, many (including "Doo Wop" featuring Candi Staton) on the Dust Traxx label, which he helped start up with label head Radek.

"I remember before Radek and I worked together," Vega says, "he was telling me about travelling to France with Paul. They were going bananas over him and his records. It's no doubt why Radek would've wanted Paul Johnson for one of the first Dust Traxx releases and if not to help head up the label."