The Belleville Three are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May, a trio of boys who in the early 80s refined the sound that would come to be known as techno. The three grew up in the middle class Detroit suburb of Belleville, attending high school together in the mid ‘70s. The trio were influenced by the newly minted synthesizer sounds of early disco and electronic music by the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Can, Gary Numan, and Parliament. Juan Atkins was the first in the group to take up turntablism, teaching May and Saunderson how to dj. The electronic and funk sounds that influenced the Belleville Three came primarily from a 5-hour late-night radio show called The Midnight Funk Association, broadcast in Detroit and djed Charles “Electrifyin’ Mojo” Johnson, who subsequently played the record mixes recorded by the three boys, who recorded long mixes under the collective name Deep Space Soundworks.

The three began to be influenced by the House Music sound after taking trips to Chicago, in particular by the tracks being played by legendary Chicago djs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles, who djed at clubs called the Music Box and The Power Plant. House was a natural progression from disco music, and had taken a firm hold on Chicago’s gay scene. The clubs that played it were gathering places in Chicago for the black and Latino gay population. The trio began to formulate the synthesis of these grown-up disco sounds with the stark electronic noises of groups like Kraftwerk, and inspired by the stark industrial architecture of the Detroit metro area. Inspired by the energy and community fostered by these house clubs, May, Atkins, and Saunderson started a club of their own in Detroit named the Music Institute. The club helped unite an scene that up to that point had been scattered and factionalized into a cohesive whole. It allowed for more collective work and sharing of ideas by kids who had similar tastes, and inspired what would become the second wave of Detroit-area techno artists like Carl Craig and Richie Hawtin.

As far as recording went, Juan Atkins was the first to begin recording and promoting his music, with a minor hit in 1981 under the moniker Cybotron with a song called “Alleys of Your Mind”. He would later record music under a variety of names, including Model500 and Infiniti. Saunderson met with significant success recording under the name Inner City, with a UK hit entitled Big Fun. May began releasing songs in the mid-80s under the name Rhythm is Rhythm, beginning with a single on the newly formed Transmat Record label entitled Nude Photo. May soon released several more songs that would go on to define the genre of techno, in particular a track entitled “Strings of Life”.

This piece met with a great deal of success in Britain’s burgeoning rave scene, with it’s new aesthetic of using organic sounds to create inorganic-sounding music. The techno aesthetic being cultivated by the Belleville three ran along this line from its beginning: to mesh man with machine, to create something bigger, mysterious, and even a little frightening. They successfully mixed a funk-influenced urban groove with futurist synth work. They used early synthesizers manufactured by Korg, along with the Roland 909 drum machine, and later the 303 Bassline bass guitar emulator to paint throbbing, often minimalist pictures of this sci-fi brand of electronic music. Atkins in particular was an influence on early breakdancing music, haven been embraced quickly by the electro scene at the beginning of the 80s.

The influence of these three middle class suburban black teenagers has been epic – the sounds they helped change and refine from proto-electro and disco into techno marked one of the most modern distinct music genres of the last 30 years. Almost all of the influential electronic music artists of the 90s and 00s can trace the roots of their sound back to this trio and their fascination with music and the sound of the future. They were set apart from early producers like Giorgio Moroder in that their music focused less on disco hedonism and more on the austerity of beats and synths. In the years since the Belleville Three refined the sound of techno, it’s roots have often been overlooked. Much like Rock and Roll and Jazz, techno’s origin among black musicians has in some ways been co-opted by an image of pale white German producers working in rooms full of arcane computer equipment, and not, as Derrick May has been quoted as saying, “George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator together”. Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson have both met with great success as djs as well as composers and producers, and all three of the Belleville Three continue to record music and mixes to this day.

TRACKS PLAYED:

Cybotron – Alleys of Your Mind (Juan Atkins)
Rock to the Beat by Reese and Santonio (Kevin Saunderson)
Strings of Life by Rhythm is Rhythm (Derrick May)
Inner City – Big Fun (Kevin Saunderson)