Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson
The Belleville Three: Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson
The Midnight Funk Association, broadcast in Detroit by DJ Charles “The Electrifying Mojo“
Belleville Three
Belleville Fourth Eddie ‘Flashin’ Fowlkes
Fowlkes and Blake Baxter
Eddie Fowlkes was born on December 24, 1962, in Detroit, Michigan.[2][3] After attending a 1978 Charivari party with his older sisters where he saw DJ Darryl Shannon mixing records, Fowlkes requested a mixer for Christmas and later made his DJ debut in the late 70s
He was part of Juan Atkins‘s Deep Space DJ collective which included Art Payne, Keith Martin, and Derrick May, who was also Fowlkes’s roommate.[5][6][7] In the 1980s, Fowlkes performed with three turntables, a mixer, a wah-wah pedal, and the TR-808 & 909 drum machines.
Kevin Saunderson said that seeing Fowlkes DJ at a fraternity party inspired him to get involved in the Deep Space Crew and become a better DJ – After hearing a Cybotron performance, Fowlkes moved from being interested solely in DJing to creating his own records. Borrowing equipment from Atkins, he trained his ear and taught himself to play the keyboard over a couple of months.[5] While Fowlkes and May were roommates, Fowlkes built his studio in his bedroom and started working on his first record.[9] His first release under his own name was issued in 1986. That release on Metroplex Records, “Goodbye Kiss”,[10] helped establish what would come to be known as Detroit techno.[5]
With the 1991 M.I.D. (Made In Detroit) release of Detroit Techno Soul, Fowlkes introduced the concept of techno soul because “Detroit … is both house heads and techno heads.”[6] This was followed by the 1993 Tresor release The Birth of Technosoul, featuring 3MB (Moritz von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann).
owlkes started releasing on his own label, City Boy Records, in 1993. Fowlkes also owns the Detroit Wax imprint on City Boy
He ain’t from Belleville. And maybe that was the problem.
The real story of techno involves names that are often forgotten by those who only casually enjoy the genre: Baxter, Echols, Shakir, Oldham, Fowlkes. the Belleville Three—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson. But it’s hard to argue with Eddie ‘Flashin” Fowlkes’ bona fides. Few others can claim to have been roommates with Derrick May in the mid-’80s or to have inspired Kevin Saunderson to leave football and pursue music full-time. Fowlkes can. Along with Atkins and May, he was a member of the Deep Space crew—a DJ collective that eventually included Saunderson, Art Payne and Keith Martin. “Here” is making records—something that Fowlkes had little interest in before that night. “I just wanted to be a DJ. My goal was to play all the clubs in Detroit.
“Goodbye Kiss” got a release in 1986, and is credited by journalist Dan Sicko as being the imprint’s first “proper ‘techno’ success.”
So, why does Fowlkes remain the forgotten one? There are two major reasons. First, unlike the trio around him, Fowlkes never started a label. Metroplex, Transmat and KMS went a long way toward institutionalizing the names Atkins, May and Saunderson. (It also gave them the freedom to release whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to.) It’s a Detroit tradition—artists walking in the footsteps of Berry Gordy, fiercely independent, hugely suspicious of those that might want to take that independence away. Fowlkes started City Boy Records in 1993, but by that time the trio had a head start of several years—and a wealth of classic material to their names.
