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There is something incongruous about Marshall Jefferson, the most influential Chicago house music producer of the 1980s, compiling a mix CD of his favourite Salsoul records. Jefferson, after all, listened to rock, not disco, during the 1970s, and he never once set foot in the Warehouse, where the rousing selections of Frankie Knuckles -- which revolved around Salsoul anthems such as "Let No Man Put Asunder" -- inspired Chicago kids to coin the term "house music". Indeed Jefferson unblushing confesses that he didn't even hear a Salsoul record until the company had effectively closed down in early 1984, Shep Pettibone having exhausted (or so it seemed at the time) the potential for remixing the label's back catalogue. So how did Salsoul come to provide Jefferson with the "foundations of house"?

The story begins, like so many of the best stories about Chicago house, on the dance floor of the Music Box, where Ron Hardy began to formulate a peculiarly manic blend of disco, new wave and electro when the venue opened at the end of 1983. Hardy had only been offered the job when Robert Williams, the ex-owner of the Warehouse, which had closed in June, failed to entice Frankie Knuckles to join him at his new club, but the relatively unknown spinner soon generated a reputation for generating ferociously emotive sets and Jefferson, who was lured to the venue by an attractive co-worker at the Post Office, was soon caught up in the DJ's bewildering slipstream. "I wasn't interested in dance music before I went to the Music Box," he says. "I was listening to rock'n'roll because it was so hard. I was young and disco wasn't rebellious enough for me. But at the Music Box the volume really swept me away."

Wearing a dog collar around his neck and a little bowler hat on his head, Jefferson effortlessly blended into the off-the-wall scene at the Music Box, where the young straight crowd was flipping out to Hardy's dark and delirious programming, and the newcomer soon started to record music that combined rock's hard-edged aesthetic with the sensuous rhythms of disco. "At that point I had only gone to the Music Box four or five times," says Jefferson. "I worked from midnight to eight-thirty every day and the Music Box was open from midnight to noon, so I was usually too tired to go down there. But I had a vibe for the place and that's how I was able to make music for it."

Inspired by the belief that if Jessie Saunders could make house music, anyone could make house music, Jefferson went into the studio and, with the less than cooperative assistance of Vince Lawrence, laid down a series of undulating 808 drum tracks that were destined for cutting floor heaven until a friend called Sleazy D took a copy of the tapes to Hardy. The recordings worked perfectly at the Music Box and, following their subsequent release as "Virgo Go Wild Rhythm Tracks" in early 1985, Jefferson teamed up with Sleazy D to record the demented, burbling "I've Lost Control", which, thanks to its inversion of the uplifting delivery of the impassioned disco diva, became Hardy's celebrated anti-anthem. "'I've Lost Control' came from rock music," says Jefferson. "I tried to bring a little Jimi Hendrix into the picture. 'I've Lost Control' was house music's 'Star Spangled Banner'."

Disco, however, still comprised a significant part of any Hardy set -- in part because he loved the music and in part because barely enough house music had been released to fill an entire night -- and the DJ's Salsoul selections left an indelible impression on Jefferson. "The Music Box was the first place I ever heard a Salsoul record," he says. "Ron Hardy played a whole shitload of Salsoul records -- 'Let No Man Put Asunder', 'Love Sensation', 'Doctor Love', all of the classics. The Salsoul records were very influential."

Searching for material that he could play at his new payday gig at the Post Office, Jefferson started to purchase his favourite Salsoul cuts from Imports Etc. "They were selling some of that shit for $50 a copy because it was all out of print. It was underground, so everybody wanted it." Jefferson's co-workers, determined to blow their pay cheques before the evening was out, also wanted "it", and their desire to pull (rather than buy rare records) was perfectly consistent with a whole rafter of Salsoul lyrics. "I got my mind made up, come on, you can get it, get it girl, anytime, tonight is fine," sings Jefferson. "Oh, they liked that. Ohhh, they liked that. I'd play the Instant Funk and everybody would get on the dance floor and shake it up." When it came to spinning other less obviously erotic tracks, Jefferson persevered, determined as he was to educate his dancers in the rites of dance floor ecstasy. "'Hit And Run' was funky but it wasn't happy enough for the Post Office workers. I forced it on them anyway. DJ privilege. I used to get pissed off. You should hear it when Ron Hardy plays it at the Music Box!"

Jefferson's seminal recording, "Move Your Body", a tape of which spread through Chicago and New York like fiercest of fires before it was eventually released in 1986, drew heavily on Salsoul's aesthetic of uplifting instrumentation, passionate vocals and driving percussion. "'Move Your Body' could be a Salsoul record if it wasn't for the drum machine, and even the drums sound like they could be live" says the producer. "I only used three instruments -- the bass, piano and strings -- plus drums, so it's stripped down, but there's a definite connection with Salsoul." In contrast to the majority of his Chicago-based peers, Jefferson refused to directly draw on the disco classics, and his desire to produce new music inadvertently drew him closer to the musical practices of the 1970s. "Everybody else in Chicago was just copying old disco records, ripping of bass lines and keyboards, whereas I just played what I could play. Nobody could really identify my music with the old disco stuff, but it was similar, and with 'Move Your Body' I think I nailed the Salsoul vibe."

A producer at the peak of his creative powers, Jefferson refused to lapse into sameness, and the varied sounds of Hercules ("Seven Ways To Jack"), Jungle Wonz ("The Jungle", "Time Marches On"), Phuture ("Acid Trax"), The Truth ("Open Our Eyes") and Virgo ("Free Yourself") testify to that. Yet his self-described "next step" -- the moment when Atlantic signed Ten City and Jefferson, for the first time, had a significant production budget at his disposal -- took him both forwards and backwards. "The Ten City recordings were an interpretation of Salsoul," he notes. "The soaring vocals and strings could be directly linked to songs like "Let No Man Put Asunder' and 'Doctor Love' and 'Love Sensation'. Actually there were only three violins on 'Devotion' -- the rest was all keyboards -- but it sounded like a continuation of the Salsoul era."

Music rarely breaks free from the past. Rather, it prefers to mutate, playing with generic conventions, instrumental combinations, new technologies and resonant voices in order to produce something that is both familiar and fresh, and this, according to Jefferson, has been the way with house, which "is essentially a continuation of Salsoul and disco." The connection isn't always obvious, which is why Jefferson, switching between the dusty regulation cap he wore for a his whacky Post Office parties and the tattered bowler hat he reserved for the wilder climes of the Music Box, has decided to take us back to the mid-eighties, back to Chicago, back to a time when Salsoul laid the foundations of house.