Paul Johnson tracks fit in everywhere, but stand out anywhere. "Feel The Music" opened Daft Punk's 1997 Essential Mix, with Johnson's trademark, revved-up sampling style serving as an obvious blueprint for the French duo's sound.His 1999 house classic, "Get Get Down," was a bona fide hit, charting in 14 countries and earning MTV airplay. Yet when Johnson tragically died of Covid-19 earlier this month, there was a sense that he was still relatively unsung compared to the impact he made on dance music.

There are artists who flip disco samples into classic house tracks, like Terrence Parker. There are South Side producers like Deeon and Milton who made tough-as-nails "ghetto" beat tracks. Johnson is one of the only artists—maybe the only artist—to excel in both of these classic Chicago styles.

"When Paul did shit for Dance Mania, he sparked the flame [for] Deeon and Funk and all them. He created that shit, they just took it and tweaked it and screwed it back," says Paul's close friend and collaborator Gene Hunt. "It's like a pattern for a suit... Paul is one of the illustrators that helped create that ghetto shit.... all them boys lived in the projects, Deeon and Milton and all them. They got that flavor, but Paul was able to be diverse. Paul can make some soulful shit, Paul will sing on his record, he can make a jack beat. He was universal. There were no weaknesses in his production."

Hunt is 50, the same age as Johnson when he passed on August 4th. They played at each other's respective birthday parties. Johnson's was a livestream earlier this year and Hunt’s celebration went down on July 10th in Chicago, with a lineup that included Johnson, Ron Trent and Sadar Bahar. Hunt and Johnson were also at work on a major project at the time of the latter's passing—the stuff of house music dreams.

Hunt is an incomparable steward of Chicago house music, a repository of the genre's artifacts, from reel-to-reels to show flyers. With the blessings and unreleased recordings of Marshall Jefferson and Larry Heard’s Fingers Inc, he and Johnson were given free rein to take turns making new versions of the classic material—"the GH-and-PJ combo," as he describes it.

In doing so, Johnson and Hunt honor a tradition that goes back to the origins of Chicago house, where DJs would drop signature versions of hit tracks, often playing exclusives off of reel-to-reel players. Or, in the case of Paul Johnson, a Tascam four-track, as observed by his protege and Dance Mania mainstay Gant Garrard, known by his moniker Gant-Man, back in the early '90s. When I speak to him on the phone, he's in the midst of a busy weekend with multiple DJ gigs. He has a new EP on Teklife, but Garrard's career spans back the early '90s when he started DJing clubs at just 11 years old. A year later, Garrard met Johnson, who was twenty at the time. Johnson served as an inspiration from the jump.

"There was a party put on by Joe Lewis from Target Records," Garrard tells me, "and they wanted to book me. It was one of my first times DJing a real event, and Paul was the headliner. I had never met Paul, though I'd always loved his tracks. He knew about me because I was the youngest DJ on the radio. He thought I was a teenager, or older, you know, and I didn't know he was in a wheelchair. The next thing that blew my mind was how he was mixing. There were two turntables, but he was mixing records from one turntable, and then he had a Tascam four-track cassette deck in his lap, playing unreleased Paul Johnson tracks, blending with the pitch control on the four-track."

Johnson would eventually take Garrard under his wing, letting the young artist use his studio and lending production assistance on his debut record, The Youngest Professional D.J., released via Dance Mania in 1995. There was a lot Garrard had to prove. "[Johnson] was like, 'If you come over here you're gonna learn and you're gonna work, you ain't gonna waste my time.'" He recalls, "And I just showed him I was serious." Among his gear, Johnson had a budget sampler, the Akai S01, a TR-909 and a Roland R-70—of which the two producers were both fans because Johnson used the synth on his early records—and a Boss DR-660 Dr. Rhythm. "He showed me the drum machines, and I kid you not, in one day I caught on. He was like, 'Man, you got it. Go on, do your thing, create," Garrard remembers.

Garrard became Paul Johnson's preferred support DJ in the late '90s and early 2000s, joining him for months in Ibiza and elsewhere in Europe. The first Gant-Man gig outside of the states was at Le Queen in Paris, at the massively influential French Touch night Respect. Johnson and Garrard had dinner with Guy-Man and Thomas from Daft Punk on an early Parisian trip. "They were soaking up the game," Garrard says. "'Teachers?' They weren't lying."

Alongside being a prolific virtuoso of dance music—at times making six full tracks in one day—, Johnson was also a mentor to many. "You gotta understand that Paul put a lot of people in play," Hunt says. "Gant-Man is one of his proteges. Stacy Kidd is one of his proteges, Melvin Meeks... Paul had an army of individuals that he took up under his wing and he trained and schooled. He was like master Yoda; this motherfucker was the business." According to Hunt, Johnson’s influence extended to A&R duties for the label Dust Traxx, as well as granular-level critiques of individual tracks. If a demo wasn’t clean, Johnson tasked himself with cleaning it up; if something was missing, Johnson would say "Come on, let’s make something right quick," and incorporate the addition right in the moment. "If you went over [to his studio]," Hunt tells me, "your project would be polished, because he was a perfectionist."

"On a sidebar, you could tell when Paul had helped with tracks because it had a certain sound in his studio, he had a certain way of EQing," Garrard says, also mentioning the friendly competition between the two of them. There were a few tracks where Garrard had the original idea, but it was Johnson who completed its execution. He recalls one standout event: "I did the sample [of the live band Earth Wind & Fire], Paul was sitting back like, 'Oh, that's cold!' But I couldn't get the sample on beat using the MPC3000. He heard me trying to do it and after a couple hours of not getting it I gave up and I left. I came back the next day and he had done it. He let me hear it and started laughing. I said, 'Man, you dirty for that one.' He said 'You couldn't get it right, I had to do it!'"

All that hard work would all pay off around the turn of the century when "Get Get Down" dropped. Zernell Gillie, whose mix of exclusive Paul Johnson cuts follows, recalls the era. "After 'Get Get Down,' he wasn't around [Chicago anymore]. He was the flyjock. The big dude."

But there was a flipside to Johnson's hard work, artistic influence and commercial success. In 1987, Johnson was DJing for friends in his basement when a friend showed up with a gun in his waistband. After Johnson told his friend to empty the cartridge, the gun misfired and he was paralyzed from the waist down. Eventually both of Johnson's legs would be amputated.

"I remember when he had to get the other leg amputated [in 2010]," Hunt recalls. "I was playing in LA. I was sitting in my hotel and he called. I said, 'Man, you ok?' He said 'Nah man, I can't do this shit no more. They're gonna take my other leg.' I said, 'Paul, you got the mind of a genius. You're like Professor X from the X-Men. Your brain in your motherfucking head is your magic.'"

"We sat on the phone, we boo-hoo'd for about two or three hours. Next thing you know he got well. He got back on point. That's when he came with the HAMMERTIME [residency] and started kicking major ass."

Everything in Johnson's life—from his tracks, to his talent to his work ethic, even his physical handicap—served as a motivating factor as well as an inspiration to those around him. "Paul was teaching me confidence. He was teaching me work ethic. Paul was about no excuses," Garrard expressed. "He said, 'Gant, I'm in this chair. I have no choice but to do this music. I always loved it, even when I was walking, but now I have no choice but to do it because I'm in this chair.' He said that one reason why he wished he could walk is so he could dance on the dance floor with a lady."

Lately, Hunt has been looking over his text messages with Johnson, with whom he spoke while the producer was in the hospital. He woke up in bed the minute Johnson died. "Lo and behold, he left a beautiful legacy for us. He wasn't handicapped, he had other powers. That shit's a gift. That is not a handicap. This man had an ear. The way he produced, the way he programmed his drums, those funky ass basslines. Then he'd get on there and say some cold ass shit and sample that shit." Over the phone, Hunt sings a synth-line and a vocal in the unmistakable Paul Johnson style. "Then he'd bring the bass in and out, he'd have the fucking hat on, just sitting in that chair tearing your ass up. I miss my buddy, man, that was my man. That was my hero."