Bio:
With over four decades of traveling the globe sharing his passion for house music, Terry Hunter’s career is the stuff of legend. As a DJ, his name consistently headlines some of the most renowned festivals including Miami’s Winter Music Conference, SuncéBeat, Groove Odyssey, 51st State and Amsterdam Dance Event. And as a producer, his discography constantly updates with the music industry’s top artists including Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Jill Scott, John Legend, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly, Raheem Devaughn, Terisa Griffin, Estelle, Chantay Savage, Byron Stingily (of Chicago’s Ten City), Syleena Johnson, Kanye West, Rhymefest, Barbara Tucker and as of recent Chaka Khan and Beyonce.
Born and raised in the city where it all began, even the start of his career includes the Chicago parties and nightclubs credited with creating the foundation for an entire genre. His first release in 1990 titled “Madness,” became an underground hit and would prove to be a precursor to a plethora of successful releases and #1’s on Traxsource & Beatport from his own label, T’s Box Records, started in 2004. Becoming the first new member of Chicago’s Chosen Few DJs in 2006, Terry went on to release the global dance classic, “Wonderful”, featuring Chicago songstress Terisa Griffin, followed with a remix of Marshall Jefferson’s house music anthem, “Move Your Body” and a hit remix of Avery Sunshine’s “Ugly Part Of Me.”
Named “Producer of the Year” by 5 Magazine in 2009, Terry’s work includes numerous collaborations such as 2011’s “Mass Destruction” project with his friend and colleague, Kenny Dope, with whom he remixed Kanye West’s “Addiction.” In 2013, he released “We Are One: A Movement for Life,” a contemporary ‘message record’ addressing the violence impacting Chicago communities, from which all proceeds were donated to local non-profit organizations working to reduce the issue. In 2014, Terry earned Terry his first Grammy nomination for Jennifer Hudson’s “It’s Your World” followed by a career highlight of producing two songs — “I Will Survive” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” — for Aretha Franklin’s “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Songs” project.
Signed to Ultra Records in 2019, Terry’s first full length album “Imagine No Music" is already making its mark. The first single “Angel” held a number one spot on Traxsource for over two weeks, and the second single “TSOC: The Sound of Chicago” featuring Common, Mike Dunn, Deon Cole, Chantay Savage, ColdHard of Crucial Conflict, AM7 and Jamie Principle captured the same position after only 4 days of being released.
After 40 years, Terry Hunter relevancy is stronger than ever. Sky’s the limit.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).