Mike Huckaby's Detroit house legacy is still in rotation

Mike Huckaby died on April 24, 2020, at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He was 54. He had suffered a stroke earlier that spring and tested positive for COVID-19 during his hospitalization, according to Resident Advisor and DJ Mag. Four years on, the Detroit deep house producer's records still circulate, the producers he taught still name him, and the catalog he left has not dated.

Huckaby spent years behind the counter at Record Time, the Detroit area record store where he managed and bought for the dance room. He worked alongside other Detroit selectors who came through that shop, including Dan Bell, Claude Young, and Magda, per Resident Advisor's account. The store was the day job and the apprenticeship at once. The records he made later came out of all that listening.

As a producer he released on labels including Harmonie Park and Cross Section Records, and he ran his own imprints, Deep Transportation and S Y N T H. The output was small by choice and consistent in feel. His deep house ran slower and more soulful than much of what came out of Chicago in the same years, leaning jazz-rooted and hypnotic rather than built for a peak-time floor.

Huckaby was also a teacher, and that is the part of his record that Detroit keeps returning to. He led music production workshops at YouthVille Detroit, walking young people through the software and the gear, and he partnered with Native Instruments and Ableton on sound design and instruction. Producers who came up in his orbit, among them Kyle Hall, count him as a mentor. The teaching set him apart in a scene where method was often held close. Huckaby gave his away.

His DJ work carried him well beyond the city. He first played Tresor in Berlin in 1997 and became one of the more durable links between the Detroit and Berlin scenes over the next two decades. At home he was a regular at Movement, the festival that grew out of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival.

When he died, Detroit's dance community lost one of its connectors early in the pandemic. "Mike's life was all about music," his booking agent Daniel Liakhovitski said in a statement carried by Resident Advisor. "Please listen to his tracks and his DJ mixes." Promoters, peers, and former students posted tributes across the city and the wider house world.

The catalog has held up. Deep Transportation and S Y N T H twelve-inches still turn up in record stores, his recorded sets stay in circulation online, and the production approach he taught keeps surfacing in work by people who studied with him. The strand of Detroit house that runs jazzier and slower than the Chicago version runs partly through Huckaby. Four years on, the records still get played.