He was massively important in the history of electronic dance music, but that's a field where it takes a highly trained ear to be able to distinguish individual styles or artists.
I once witnessed a friend of mine identify a Frankie Knuckles track the first time he ever heard it the same way I would be able to tell an Echo & the Bunnymen song, but that was beyond my feeble comprehension. It was very humbling.
On the other hand, that same friend struggled for 30 years to identify a song he heard on a college station way back when. All he could remember was that the lyrics were about helping someone win. He was talking about it again the other day and he clarified it a bit more that the chorus was "I wanna help you win!" to which I said, "Well, hell, it's not 'help you win.' It's 'Help You Anne' by the Lyres.'" I felt pretty smug about that and it went a long way towards easing my feeling of inferiority about not being able to tell one brand of techno apart from another.
