Johnny Dynell (born John Savas) is a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

DJ, record producer, recording artist, remixer, nightclub promoter, and nightlife impresario.

Club DJ

Dynell started his DJ career at the

Mudd Club The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Die ...

in 1980 and has been a resident DJ at influential New York City clubs for over three decades including The Pyramid Club,

Danceteria Danceteria was a nightclub that operated in New York City from 1979 until 1986 and in the Hamptons until 1995. The club operated in various locations over the years, a total of three in New York City and four in the Hamptons. The most famous locati ...

The Roxy Roxy, Roxey, and Roxie may refer to: People * Roxy (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name Places in the United States * Roxie, Mississippi, a town * Roxie, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Music * Roxy ...

The Limelight The Limelight was the name of a chain of nightclubs owned and operated by Peter Gatien. It had locations in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, London and Hallandale. Context During the 1980s, club culture had died down because of the AIDS ...

Area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an obje ...

The Tunnel ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

Susanne Bartsch Susanne Bartsch (born 1962) is a Swiss event producer living in the United States whose monthly parties at the Copacabana in the late 1980s united the ''haute'' and ''demi-monde'', and made her an icon of New York nightlife. "Ms. Bartsch's name ...

parties, Jackie 60, Crobar, Mr. Black, Greenhouse, Marquee, The Copacabana, The Monster, The Ice Palace (Fire Island), Daniel Nardicio parties and

Club Cumming Club Cumming is a gay bar and nightclub in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It frequently hosts cabaret events, Broadway-style shows, dance parties and drag performances. Celebrities, especially Broadway actors, of ...

Nightlife promoter and club owner

In 1990 Dynell, along with others, founded the performance club Jackie 60, a center of New York art club performance. In 1996, Dynell and Valenti took over full-time operation of the venue that housed Jackie 60, renaming the club ''Mother''. The venue, designed by Dynell, also housed Click + Drag, a “cyber-fetish-gothic weekly” and New York City's first weekly vampire themed club, Long Black Veil. ''Mother'' closed in June, 2000.

Music recording career

Johnny Dynell's first single "Jam Hot" (Acme Records, 1983) became a cult classic and has been remixed and sampled many times over. In 1990

Norman Cook Norman Quentin Cook (born Quentin Leo Cook, 31 July 1963), also known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, is an English musician, DJ, and record producer who helped to popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Cook was the bassist f ...

aka Fatboy Slim and his group

Beats International Beats International were a British dance music band and hip-hop collective, formed in the late 1980s by Norman Cook (later in his career known as Fatboy Slim) based in Brighton, East Sussex, England, after his departure from the Housemartins. A ...

released "

Dub Be Good to Me "Dub Be Good to Me" is a song by British dub group Beats International featuring singer Lindy Layton, released on 24 January 1990 as the first single from their debut album, '' Let Them Eat Bingo'' (1990). It was written by frontman Norman Cook ...

" which sampled the "Jam Hot" rap "tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty/ you're listening to the boy from the big bad city, this is Jam Hot, this is Jam Hot". The song was the seventh best-selling single of 1990 in the UK, reached #1 on the U.S.

Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as th ...

chart and #76 on the Billboard

Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...

. In 2010 a remix project on Smash Hit Music included re-workings by

Tensnake Marco Niemerski, known professionally as Tensnake (born 1975), is a German DJ and producer from Hamburg best known for his 2010 track " Coma Cat", which appeared on at least 15 compilations that year. "Coma Cat" reached number 85 on the UK Singl ...

Peter Rauhofer Peter Rauhofer (29 April 1965 – 7 May 2013) was an Austrian-American disc jockey (DJ), remixer and producer who formerly worked under the moniker Club 69 as well as Size Queen. A native of Vienna, Austria, he was famous for a variety of his re ...

, Ilija Rudman, Clouded Vision, 40 Thieves and the song's original producer

Mark Kamins Mark Kamins (April 13, 1955 – February 14, 2013) was an American record producer, remixer, and disc jockey famous for his role in the New York club scene. He is best known for helping launch the career of singer Madonna by bringing her to Sire ...

. As a recording artist Dynell has also been released on

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

Arista Records Arista Records () is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertainmen ...

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, also known as SCA), is the American arm of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group ...

, Heinz Records, Tribal Records, GIG Records, Xtravaganza Records, Pow Wow Records, Warlock Records and his own label Endless Night Music since 2011. Dynell, a longtime member of the

House of Xtravaganza Founded in 1982, the House of Xtravaganza is one of the most publicly recognized “houses” to emerge from the New York City underground ballroom scene and among the longest continuously active. House of Xtravaganza members and the collective gr ...

, helped to introduce to the culture at large the "voguing" dance form with his 1989 release "Elements of Vogue", performed by MC David Ian Xtravaganza, a co-writer of the song with Dynell and David DePino.Regnault, Chantal and Lawrence, Tim. ''Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92''. Soul Jazz Books, 2011, p. 7 As a songwriter, Dynell has also collaborated with

Malcolm McLaren Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provoc ...

and

Pink Martini Pink Martini is an American band that was founded in 1994 by pianist Thomas Lauderdale in Portland, Oregon. Group members call it a little orchestra that crosses several styles, such as classical, latin, traditional pop, and jazz. The co-lead v ...

on "Una Notte a Napoli" and "Segundo".

Selected discography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dynell, Johnny Living people American DJs DJs from New York City American record producers Year of birth missing (living people)