17 Facts About Larry Levan

Larry Levan was an American DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club.

Larry Levan developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass".

Influential post-disco DJ Francois Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music.

Larry Levan was born at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, New York, to Minnie and Lawrence Philpot.

Larry Levan has an older brother Isaac and sister Minnie who are biological twins.

Larry Levan was born with a congenital heart condition and suffered from asthma from a very young age which would make him prone to fainting in class.

Larry Levan inherited his love for music from his mother who loved blues, jazz, and gospel music, and he was able to use a record player from the age of three.

Larry Levan became infatuated with an idea of making the "music that would never stop" during a brief affair with hippie DJ David Mancuso, who introduced Levan to Manhattan's burgeoning underground downtown dance culture.

Larry Levan got his start alongside Frankie Knuckles at the Continental Baths, as a replacement for the DJ from The Gallery, Nicky Siano, who briefly employed both men as decorators at The Gallery and taught them his pioneering three turntable technique.

Accordingly, Larry Levan's DJing style was influenced by Siano's penchant for Philadelphia soul and upbeat rock and Mancuso's jazz-inflected eclecticism; as with Mancuso, he briefly dated Siano during the epoch.

At the height of the disco boom in 1977, Larry Levan was offered a residency at the Paradise Garage.

Open only to a select membership and housed in an otherwise unadorned building on King Street in Greenwich Village, the club and Larry Levan's DJing slowly entered the mainstream.

One of the first dance releases to incorporate influences from dub music and an appended vocal-only edit, Larry Levan tinkered with the song for nearly a year despite the looming bankruptcy of West End Records.

The club's closure and Brody's death devastated Larry Levan, who knew that few club owners would tolerate his quirks and drug dependencies.

Larry Levan informed his mother in June 1992 that he had "lived a good life" and was "ready to die".

Larry Levan was previously romantically involved with Nicky Siano.

In September 2004, Larry Levan was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his outstanding achievement as a DJ.