The Vault
Hank Morrison
Chicago. He was there before the music had a name, and he's still here, with a coffee, a lot of shelves and very little to say until it matters.
A man who only ever tells you about the calls he got right isn't worth listening to.
The Warehouse
He was at the Warehouse, 206 South Jefferson Street, in the late seventies. Not behind the decks. Not yet. A relative with a foot in the scene brought him along, and he stood at the side of the room and listened. He got his shot in the summer of 1980, and he never gave it back.
A stopwatch and a notebook
There was no BPM on the label then. No key, no beat grid. Hank kept a paper notebook in his record bag: which records would mix with which, worked out by feel, in pencil. He timed the beats with a stopwatch until he trusted his ears enough to put it away. Every record that worked, he bought twice, so he could stretch the break for as long as the floor wanted it.
June 1980, his first clean mix. That autumn, a residency in a club with three turntables in the booth. Later, two years of Friday nights at the Smart Bar that people in this city still talk about.
"You kids have a beat grid. I had a stopwatch and a notebook. Same job."
The Vault
People started calling him The Vault a long time ago. He never asked them to. It isn't a vault, he'll tell you. It's shelves. A lot of shelves, and some boxes he keeps meaning to sort out. White labels, a cassette in a shoebox, records he's owned for forty years and never once played on the radio, because nobody asked.
Most weeks he's at Gramaphone on Clark Street. He has spent more hours on both sides of that counter than he can count.
On the station
He joined Funky House Radio years ago, partly because he needed something to do and partly because somebody left the door open and he never left. He comes in, plays a flawless set, drinks his coffee and goes home. He doesn't say much on the mic. When he does, it lands.