Ron Hardy was an American, Chicago, Illinois-based DJ and record producer of early house music. He is well known for playing records at the Muzic Box, a Chicago house music club. Decades after his death, he also is recognized for his edits and mixes of disco, soul music, funk and early house music.
Early career
Hardy started his career in 1974 in Chicago's gay club Den One. Here, with a set-up of two turntables, a mixer and a reel-to-reel tape-deck, he played long nights of underground black dance music. Around 1977, he went to work inLos Angeles. At the end of 1982, when DJ Frankie Knuckles left the Warehouse to open the Power Plant, Ron Hardy DJed at the Warehouse's new location until Robert Williams renamed it "The Music Box." Producer Chip E. introduced Hardy to recording music in 1986 when the two mixed "Donnie" by The It. From humble beginnings, Hardy's contributions to house music are considered influential.
Musical and mixing styles
While Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse had a smooth style of playing, Hardy was different. He had less regard for sound quality and would play with a manic energy, mixing everything from classic Philadelphia disco classics, Italo disco imports to new wave, disco and rock tracks. Hardy also pitched records up way more than Knuckles. Techno artistDerrick May remembers hearing Hardy playing a Stevie Wonder cut with the speed at +8.
Trademarks
Hardy played a lot of reel-to-reel edits and was always tweaking the soundsystem and playing with the EQ. A Ron Hardy trademark was playing a track backwards. Theo Parrish and several others have said that he did this by turning the needle upside down and putting the record on a cylinder so the needle played the underside of the record, although Stacey Collins says that he did this by using a reel-to-reel. Hardy's residence-club The Music Box was also known for its loud sound.
Midway through the 1980s, many Chicago DJs and clubgoers started experimenting with creating their own rhythm tracks. DJs would play these homemade tracks, and this is how house music was born. Hardy was no exception, often getting the hottest acetates and tapes. Chicago producers including Marshall Jefferson, Larry Heard, Adonis, Phuture's DJ Pierre and Chip E. all debuted a lot of their compositions at The Muzic Box. When DJ Pierre and his friends Herb and Spanky created a weird squelching rhythm track from a Roland TB 303 bassline machine, they gave this track to Ron Hardy. The first time he played it, the dancers left the floor. Hardy played the track three more times that night, and by the fourth time the audience was going crazy. The track was named "Acid Tracks", and the band was called Phuture. Hardy played a lot of the same tracks his DJ peers in Chicago played. However his combative DJ style, loud volume, experimentation with new music and the general atmosphere of The Music Box makes him to be considered a pioneer in the house music genre. Hardy continued a successful DJ-residency at The Music Box until the end of the 1980s and quickly changed his playlist to encompass more and more house music.
In early 1987, Chicago passed an ordinance forcing after-hours clubs to close at the same time as bars. The Music Box was one of many casualties. After the closure of the Music Box, Hardy continued to DJ at various events around Chicago. However he battled with heroin addiction and did not manage to overcome this. He died of an AIDS-related illness on March 2, 1992. In 2004, two bootleg 12" records were released with "Ron's edits" and in 2005, Partehardy Records, run by his nephew Bill released authentic edits not heard in over 20 years. There is also another bootleg series of edits called "Music Box", containing either genuine Hardy re-edits or tributes by other DJs imitating his editing style. DJ Theo Parrish also made a series of tribute-remixes called "Ugly Edits" some of which bear a striking resemblance to Hardy's re-edits. These have been bootlegged too. Some of DJ Harvey's Black Cock edits records are tributes to Hardy's edits as well. In addition to his DJ mixes, long-buried original productions have also come to light—among them, "Throwback 87", a collaboration between Ron Hardy and Gene Hunt. Ron Hardy has a section dedicated to him on the second DVD of the DJ documentary Maestro.
