Graeme Park’s career tracks the rise of British club culture almost in real time. Working at Nottingham’s Selectadisc in the early 1980s placed him close to the import records arriving from Chicago, Detroit and New York just as house music was beginning to form its own identity.

He began DJing in 1984 and developed his reputation at The Garage in Nottingham. Rather than treating the new American records as specialist curiosities, Park built dancefloors around them, mixing house with the soul, funk and electronic music that had preceded it.

In 1988 The Haçienda asked Park to cover for Mike Pickering. The timing could hardly have been more important: Britain’s Summer of Love was beginning, ecstasy and acid house were transforming club behaviour, and The Haçienda was moving from an influential venue into a symbol of a national cultural change.

Park became one of the club’s defining resident DJs, staying through much of its peak period. His Saturday-night sets helped translate American house into a distinctly British club experience and influenced the generations of DJs and promoters who built the warehouse, rave and superclub scenes that followed.

His career did not stop with the original Haçienda. International DJing, production and remix work, radio, long-running house shows and Haçienda Classical have allowed Park to keep the original repertoire in active circulation while continuing to play new music. Few British DJs provide such a direct bridge between pre-rave club culture, acid house and the present day.