Larry Sherman’s pioneering label released seminal house records like ‘Can U Feel It’, ‘Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem)’ and ‘Your Love’.
Larry Sherman, founder of influential house music record label Trax has died of heart failure aged 70. The label released a statement announcing: “It is with great sadness that TRAX Records and Rachael Cain inform the world of the passing of our founder Larry Sherman… We ask that all Trax fans remember him and send love and prayers!”
The statement was issued by current Trax president Rachael Cain (Screamin’ Rachael). Cain recorded on Trax in the early 80s and went on to jointly run the label with Sherman in the late 90s.
Sherman founded Trax in 1984 with house artist Jesse Saunders and released some of the most famous, well-loved and influential house records. The second half of the 80s saw Trax put out genre-defining music like Mr Fingers ‘Can You Feel It?’, Marshall Jefferson’s ‘Move Your Body’, ‘No Way Back’ by Adonis and releases from Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk, Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, Sleazy D, Virgo and Sweet D. The label also released Phuture’s ‘Acid Tracks’, the hugely influential first acid house record.
Trax Records had a complex history. Aside from releasing seminal records, the label was also infamous for numerous disputes around artists’ royalties and for poor-quality vinyl pressings.
In the statement on the Trax website, Sherman was described as “a music man all of his life starting all the way back to his teens as a member of the Chicago recording group The Robbs”. Trax President Cain said: “We had a dream that someday TRAX Records and our sound would be loved and embraced around the world, and somehow it happened.”
Larry Sherman is survived by his daughter Tessa Sherman, brother Curt, and his widow Sandy Sherman.