Regarded as an indispensable part of Detroit's dance music scene, Mike Huckaby was a first-class DJ and producer, as well as a mentor, tastemaker, and major influence on many others. As a longtime buyer for Michigan's Record Time shop, he supplied music to countless DJs and helped distribute Detroit's electronic music throughout the world. He taught music production courses at Detroit's YouthVille school, and ran workshops and lectures internationally as well. His DJ sets reflected his encyclopedic knowledge of music, but especially his passion for deep, soulful house music and dubby techno. While he wasn't as prolific a producer as some of his peers, his releases for labels such as Harmonie Park, Tresor, and his own S Y N T H and Deep Transportation imprints remain treasured by house and techno aficionados. A devotee of avant-garde jazz, he also released a series of Reel-to-Reel Edits of Sun Ra material, gaining recognition outside of dance music circles. He remained highly active as a DJ, producer, and educator until his untimely passing in 2020.

Born in Detroit in 1966, Mike Huckaby began collecting rock records when he was ten years old. He was introduced to techno as the genre was being developed during the 1980s -- he accompanied his close friend Anthony Shake Shakir while he engineered studio sessions for techno pioneers Juan Atkins and Derrick May. Huckaby began to collect musical equipment and produce tracks as well as DJ at parties; during the early 1990s, he held a Friday residency at Detroit venue St. Andrew's Hall. In 1992, he started working at Record Time, a music shop located in Roseville, Michigan, becoming the store's dance music buyer at a time when few stores in the area were specializing in the genre. Constantly championing his favorite records, his recommendations informed the tastes of an entire generation of DJs and listeners, both at home and abroad -- Record Time did major business through international mail-order, particularly to London and Berlin.

Huckaby began releasing his own records through co-worker Rick Wade's Harmonie Park label, issuing two Deep Transportation EPs in 1995 and 1996. While his early tracks were sampled-based, he soon tired of samples and began concentrating on music theory and piano lessons in 1999. After learning to use software programs such as Ableton Live and Reaktor during the early 2000s, he reached out to their manufacturers, and began educating others through lectures and workshops. In 2007, he started teaching electronic music production to Detroit children at YouthVille, with future stars like Kyle Hall among his pupils.

Even as his international touring schedule increased, Huckaby remained dedicated to his hometown. He continued to be a staple of the Motor City's clubs, as well as the annual Movement festival (formerly the Detroit Electronic Music Festival). He sporadically issued 12"s and mixed CD-Rs through his own Deep Transportation and S Y N T H imprints, often blurring the lines between deep house and dub techno. Sessions, a collaboration with Pacou, appeared on Cache Records in 2007, and The Detroit Remixes (with DeepChord) came out the following year. He remixed tracks by Loco Dice, Vladislav Delay, Terrence Dixon, Delano Smith, and dozens of other producers. In 2011, British label Art Yard released two well-received EPs of Huckaby's dancefloor-friendly edits of Sun Ra material, The Mike Huckaby Reel-to-Reel Edits. He also released the Tresor Records 20th Anniversary mix, and his own The Tresor EP appeared on the iconic Berlin techno label in 2012. Additional singles appeared on Half Baked and Crate Diggers, and 2017's Too Many Classics (To Be Left with Little or No Protection) rounded up some of his key productions. Shortly after testing positive for COVID-19, Huckaby died on April 24, 2020, at the age of 54. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi