Larry Levan

Early life Levan was born at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, New York, to Minnie (née Levan) and Lawrence Philpot. He had an older brother Isaac and sister Minnie who are biological twins. Eventually, he dropped out of high school and found assuagement in Harlem's longstanding ball culture as a dressmaker, where he first became acquainted with fellow designer and lifelong best friend Frankie Knuckles. with hippie DJ David Mancuso, who introduced Levan to Manhattan's burgeoning underground downtown dance culture. Mancuso was the proprietor of The Loft, a minimally decorated, members-only dance club (uniquely situated in his home) where "punch, fruit and candy" were served in lieu of alcohol

At the height of the disco boom in 1977, Levan was offered a residency at the Paradise Garage. Although owner Michael Brody—who employed Levan at the defunct Reade Street in 1976, where he "developed the techniques as well as the sound – the deep, dark bass, the queasy, dubby emotion that he would extract from records – that would make him a legend"

Open only to a select membership and housed in an otherwise unadorned building on King Street in Greenwich Village, the club and Levan's DJing slowly entered the mainstream. Influential WBLS DJ/programming director Frankie Crocker often mentioned the club on air and based his playlists around Levan's sets. The Richard Long & Associates Sound system (RLA) of the club included custom-designed "McLaughlin" bass speakers.

Filling the void left by leading DJ/remixer Walter Gibbons following his conversion to evangelical Christianity, Levan became a prolific producer and mixer in the 1980s, with many of his efforts crossing over onto the national dance music charts. Among the records that received Levan's touch were his remixes of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Inner Life, "Ain't Nothin' Goin On But The Rent" by Gwen Guthrie and "Heartbeat" by Taana Gardner, as well as his production work on the long-awaited "Don't Make Me Wait" by the Peech Boys, a group that Levan formed and was part of (and who became the New York Citi Peech Boys when the Beach Boys threatened a lawsuit due to the similar sound of the name). With a strong gospel tinge in the vocal arrangements and driven by a tinkling piano, the latter song is a quintessential example of his soulful aesthetic. One of the first dance releases to incorporate influences from dub music and an appended vocal-only edit, Levan tinkered with the song for nearly a year despite the looming bankruptcy of West End Records. When it was finally released, much of the song's word-of-mouth momentum had been lost, leading it to stall in the lower reaches of the charts.

As the popularity of the Garage soared in the mid-1980s just as many patrons and friends succumbed to AIDS, Levan became increasingly dependent upon PCP and heroin. While performing, he began to ensconce himself within a protective entourage of drag queens and younger acolytes. At the Paradise Garage, Levan was described as being "worshipped, almost like a god."

Despite protestations and pleas to the Brody family from Mel Cheren, the systems remained in storage as their property. Unable to secure a long-term residency after a stay at the short-lived Choice in the East Village alongside DJ/proprietor Richard Vasquez and Joey Llanos, Levan began to sell his valuable records for drug money. Friends like Danny Krivit would buy them back for him out of sympathy.

As the 1990s dawned, Levan was on the brink of a comeback. Dismissed as a relic in New York despite managing occasional appearances at the au courant Sound Factory, his popularity had nonetheless soared among connoisseurs of disco and early American electronic dance music in Europe and Japan. In 1991, he was brought over to London for a weekend by Justin Berkmann to DJ at the Ministry of Sound nightclub. To the mutual surprise of both parties, he ended up staying for three months; during this period, he remixed and produced tracks for the club's record label and helped to tune the venue's acclaimed sound system.

Although he was still dependent on heroin, Levan's 1992 tour of Japan garnered gushing accolades in the local press. Encouraged by Cheren, he entered rehab and continued his tentative recording forays. François Kevorkian described Levan's final Japanese sets as nostalgic and inspirational, imbued with an air of bittersweetness and closure.

Later months and death Levan informed his mother in June 1992 that he had "lived a good life" and was "ready to die". Having been mildly injured on the Japanese tour, he was voluntarily hospitalized at Beth Israel Medical Center following his return to New York. Three days after being released into the care of his mother, he was re-hospitalized at Beth Israel with hemorrhage symptoms. He died, aged 38, of heart failure caused by endocarditis at 6:15 p.m. EST, on Sunday, November 8, 1992.

Legacy In September 2004, Levan was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his outstanding achievement as a DJ.

Tributes Anything Goes! (1994), the second album by dance group C+C Music Factory, contains a tribute to Levan titled "A Moment of Silence for Larry Levan." (It also contains a track "A Moment of Silence for Chep Nunez"; Nunez was an American music producer, editor, and mixer who reached chart success with the group 2 Puerto Ricans, a Blackman, and a Dominican.) The album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (2006), by the electronic music duo Matmos, contains a tribute to Levan titled "Steam and Sequins for Larry Levan". The 2003 documentary Maestro, directed by Josell Ramos, tells the story of the underground dance music movement and the importance of Larry Levan as one of its key figures. In 2019, Corrado Rizza directed and produced a documentary movie titled Larry's Garage about Larry Levan. The LCD Soundsystem song "Losing My Edge" (2002) mentions both Levan and the Paradise Garage.