Chuck ‘The Voice’ Roberts, an unknown legend of house music for decades until he finally got the recognition he deserved, dies at the age of 66

For decades, house fans heard a thunderous voice break through the dance beats preaching, “In the beginning there was Jack!”

For the uninitiated, Jack is a reference to “jacking” – a dance style associated with house music.

The nearly two-minute-long sermon was sampled by DJs all over the world and became a kind of credo of the underground dance genre.

But people didn’t know whose voice it was. And the man behind the voice became a mythical figure in house music.

Until Chuck “The Voice” Roberts took the stage at the “Chosen Few” DJ festival in Jackson Park in 2017 and boomed the words live for the first time in 27 years.

Thousands of stunned house fans did a double take when they realized that the voice they had heard countless times was not sampled, but played live.

The famous Chicago house DJ Terry Hunter was there. His jaw also dropped.

The video of the performance went viral.

And soon after, Mr. Roberts landed a record deal and re-recorded his “Sermon” with Hunter adding the beats. He was hired by the organizers of the Amsterdam Dance Event, a major European electronic dance music festival, to open the event.

Beyoncé’s management team asked for permission to sample the song during live performances of her Renaissance tour last year.

He performed during halftime of a Bulls game in January.

And the story of Mr. Roberts, a Chicago musician who grew up on the West Side, became known.

“It was just crazy because he lived undercover in Chicago for 30 years before anyone really knew who he was and finally started to put his face and name with the voice,” said his manager Aaron Burks.

“That’s why his nickname for a long time was ‘The Voice,'” Burks said.

Mr. Roberts died of cancer on June 6. He was 66 years old.

He originally recorded the sermon, titled “My House,” in 1986 in a West Side studio as part of Rhythm Control, a short-lived group that released only one record.

It contained two tracks – a short version and a long version of “My House” with dance beats mixed in.

The group – which included Billy Sims, Quick Mix Claude, T. Lewis, C. Parker and Darrell Bruce Abbott – knew they wanted the record to reflect the almost spiritual experience of house music. They commissioned Mr. Roberts, who sang in the choir as a child and later became a minister, to put the genre into words.

He spoke the words before writing them down and recorded the track in just five takes.

The lyrics capture the message of inclusion and equality inherent in house music. The last line is: “You may be black, you may be white; you may be Jewish or non-Jewish. In our house it makes no difference. And that’s cool!”

Except for a small group of Chicagoans, hardly anyone knew Mr. Roberts or what role he played in the song that became an underground hit.

Back then, there was neither much recognition nor financial reward for house musicians.

“The genre is really getting the recognition it deserves in recent years because it helped lay the foundation for electronic dance music,” said Burks. “For a long time, it was the stepchild of the industry, an underground subgenre.”

Mr. Roberts, who sang in funk and R&B bands before turning to house music, contributed to several other house records and worked as a producer, but none of those efforts came anywhere close to the huge audience that “My House,” also known as “In the Beginning,” did.

Breaking through as a musician was tough, and Mr. Roberts, who lived in the western suburbs, worked a series of jobs outside of music for years, including a longtime stint as a baker at several Panera restaurants in the Chicago area.

“For years, he didn’t really realize how big this song was going to be until he heard his voice in the background of a video game his son was playing,” said Burks, who became Roberts’ manager in 2017 when he was thinking about getting back into music.

A subsequent lawsuit was settled by the video game manufacturer.

Mr. Roberts was not paid for all the bootleg samplings the DJs made over the years, but he was aware and humbled that they gave him momentum and created the environment that allowed him to step into the spotlight in his old age, Burks said.

“I have no words to express how happy and excited he was about the upswing in his career,” said his wife, Shirley Roberts.

Mr. Roberts first heard house music at The Factory, a now-closed West Side club that became known as a house venue in the 1980s. He was immediately captivated by the sound and the effect it had on clubbers of all kinds.

When Mr. Roberts appeared on the Everything House Music and More podcast with Grammy-winning host Maurice Joshua last year, he was asked what the future holds for him.

“I want to continue to spread love through music and bring people together… especially in this day and age, we need positive things,” he said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Roberts leaves behind eight children, 17 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.