I've read in other interviews that you like to study the dancefloor. What do you find moves people? Is there a difference between what made them dance then and how the crowds are today?

It depends on the crowd that you play for. I think the younger crowd tends to be more receptive to the intensity of the drums and bass and of the track in general. A more mature audience usually reacts more to the feeling that the music and lyrics give them. That's just a general observation that I have, but there are exceptions in every party. That's why I study the dancefloor, because my ultimate goal is for everyone to "feel me" when I play music. I want those younger people to get the feeling that the older crowd gets too, so if I have to bring intensity to get them on the floor, I want to give them more after that - not just intensity but a more spiritual feeling of jubilation that can only really be achieved by great chord progressions and melodies working together to make you "feel" the spirit of the artist's music, not just feel the bass hitting you.

When and where exactly did the word "jack" come from?

I just remember in the early '80s we always made reference to someone "jackin' the box" if they were doing a great DJ set, or "jackin' it up" if they were dancing really hard and feeling the music, or "jackin' House" when a DJ was playing House Music. I really don't know where it originated; it just caught on in our clique like any other slang does and started spreading to the masses. When I DJed, I wanted people to "Jack Their Bodies," so hence the song!

Tell us about the Candy Store. Also what clubs did you attend growing up?

The Candy Store was my first weekly residency. The club had a hard-edged, high school and college-aged crowd from the south side that liked a more urban flavor of House and electronic music. I did Friday nights, and Farley did Saturday nights. We also did some parties together there.

My first taste of "real House Music" was at "The Loft," where I heard Tony and Andre Hatchett, Alan King, Wayne Williams, and Jesse Saunders (The Chosen Few). Once I heard "Is It All Over My Face" and "Ready To Rock," I was hooked on that more soulful underground club music that we called "HOUSE!" Other clubs that I attended were The Mansion, Sauer's, The Penthouse, The Gallery, The Music Box, The Powerplant, The Riviera, C.O.D.'s, Mars Bar on Rush Street, and on the west side, Mr. G's, and Divinci Manor. I could go on and on but I'll stop right there.

You started getting commissioned to do remixes for Michael Jackson, Prince, Janet, Mary J. Blige, Crystal Waters to name a few topdog names. What event in your career catapulted you to that level?

The transition was kind of gradual. The success of "Music Is The Key, "Shadows Of Your Love," "Jack Your Body," and "I Can't Turn Around" got my group (J.M. Silk) a recording contract with RCA Records. I got a short but not always sweet lesson on the music business from that experience, and started concentrating on creating the music behind the scenes as a producer, leaving the artist thing behind.

That led to me doing remixes in 1988 for Ten City, Inner City, then Roberta Flack. I did my own compilation album for Atlantic in 1989, while still doing remixes. In 1990 I did a remix on Jomanda's "Got A Love For You" which established a new sound for me, and led to me doing mixes for Prince, Black Box, Crystal Waters, and every other artist that you could think of. By the time I did Michael Jackson in 1992, I was locked into a "Hurley Sound" that labels wanted every time they hired me.

At the same time I was developing my own artists and producers with my label I.D. Records and I.D. Productions, which was the camp of producer/remixers that I was developing by putting them on my remix projects and featuring their production on I.D. Records. I.D. was a vehicle in which we could experiment and develop new sounds by releasing records independently with no input from the major labels. That kept our sound fresh and ever-evolving, and helped us to develop several artists and producers. Kym Sims, Jamie Principle, Chantay Savage and Donell Rush were all broken through I.D. Records, as well as last year's Grammy winner, Maurice Joshua, M. Doc, and Grammy Nominee Eric "E-Smoove" Miller. I'm really proud of how far those guys have come, and we're all still really good friends. By the way, I've got big plans for the I.D. Records catalog this year!

But to answer your question, there were many monumental events and milestones that lead me to reaching that status as a producer, so I wouldn't say there was any one event that made it happen.