Paul Oakenfold Biography
Summary
"Paul Oakenfold" (born 30 August, 1963 in Greenhithe, Kent, UK) is a record producer and a popular trance DJ worldwide.
"Early Career" (1979-1984)
Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band, he describes his early life as a 'bedroom deejay' on an interview in a podcast for Vancouver's 24 Hours stating he grew listening to The Beatles. Later 21-year-old Paul Oakenfold and Ian Paul grew in 254 West 54th Street, Studio 54's Steve Rubell ran the place and only allowed popular people inside, they used fake passes to sneak into places in New York where they met Maze, Bobby Womak and Bob Marley who they even interviewed as they said to be NME and Melody Maker journalists. Other people were Brooke Shields, Cher, Donald Trump and Bianca Jagger, Warhol, Dali and Yves Saint Laurent.
Paul Oakenfold's musical career began in the late 70's, he started playing soul in a Covent Garden wine bar when he met Trevor Fung as well as Rumours in London where he played Earth, Wind and Fire and popular British bands. In 1984 he spent several months in New York City's West Harlem. During this time hip-hop was the most popular sound in the area (see 1984 in music). Larry Levan, one of the early deejays during this period performed at the Paradise Garage weekly with the hypnotic mixing style that would become the acid house that has evolved into and whose influence was absorbed by Paul. As he returned to his home country in the UK, Paul began utilizing the foreign sounds he once met and became one of the leading authorities of hip-hop in the United Kingdom. He began breaking into the mainstream as he was working as an A&R man for Champion Records, he signed at that time the unknown DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, as well as Salt N'Pepa. He also appeared on the Blue Peter tv show from BBC programme for children with a breakdancing crew, he also became promoter and British agent for the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C.; Since then, he began his presentations at The Project in Streatham playing soul and jazz music.
"Perfecto and Fame" (1985-1991)
A year later in 1985 Paul traveled to the island of Ibiza for a week to celebrate his birthday. Trevor Fung, Nicky Holloway, Ian Saint Paul, Danny Rampling and Johnny Walker accompanied him and it was during this time when playing at Amnesia that Paul demonstrated the balearic house sound that he would later become known for. The event marked his career as a producer as he convinced his owner to display an 'Ibiza Reunion' party after-hours, he had previously made an attempt but it failed as the crowd was not prepared for the acid house style until 1987 when the party was successful, since then the night grew as a classic and was one of the UK's major acid house nights which became known as 'Spectrum at Heaven in Charing Cross'. Spectrum became popular in The Sanctuary as a bigger space was required, it became into the Heaven club which was ran by Paul and his friend Ian. The party was known for the 'Theatre of Madness' as more than 1,500 people were present on Monday nights, until it went down; with the financial issues it changed its name to the 'Land of Oz'. Artists like Alex Paterson DJ'd in the VIP chillout area known as the 'White Room', which gave Paul more free time, and then he began producing music under the alias 'Electra' in 1988 with his friend Steve Osborne. In 1988 he decided to create a place where new artists could develop their careers, at that moment Perfecto Records was born.
In 1990, he worked with Terry Farley, Andrew Weatherall and Osborne on two remixes for The Happy Mondays, the remixes of "Rave On" and "Hallelujah" were released on the Madchester Rave On EP as well as "Step On" which is a covered version adapted from John Kongos' 1971 hit "He's Gonna Step On You", the song reached the Top 5 position in the UK. He was invited as a guest DJ to Spike Island, a gig from The Stone Roses and pleased with the last single, the Happy Monday's later gave Paul and Osborne the opportunity to produce their third studio album, "Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches". The album entered the UK charts at #1 with pre-sales of 150,000, the album became NME's '1990 Album of The Year' and both Paul and Osborne won the 1991 Brit Award for 'Best Producer'.
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Paul Oakenfold.
