Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (updated): The History of the Disc Jockey

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This is a very dense book and it’s very comprehensive about the DJ role in music; I don’t think I’d want to read anything longer about DJ history than the 600 pages I just finished reading (I read the most updated and revised version). One of the first club culture chronicles, and arguably the first biography of the DJ as an artist, the impact that Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton’s Last Night a DJ Saved my Life had on music writing was seminal. The biggest impetus in the rise of black music came from the post-war expansion and localization of radio. Superstar DJs, from Junior Vasquez to Sasha and Digweed, command worship and adoration from millions, flying around the globe to earn tens of thousands of dollars for one night's work. This is the best single-edition book about DJ culture that I’ve read, and it’s hard to imagine another one topping it.

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (book) - Wikipedia

Forgetting, for now, the witchdoctor, the bandleader and all the disc jockey's other illustrious prototypes, what we're asking is: Who first played recorded music to entertain a group of people? Freed, arrogant and complacent to the last, admitted accepting payments from United Artists, Roulette and Atlantic Records and distributors Cosnat and Superior. Focusing on the club DJ, the book gets first-hand accounts of the births of disco, hip-hop, house, and techno. on-air weekly on New York's WBLS sixty years later), was told, "No nigger is ever going on the air in Washington," by the management of WINX in the nation's capital.

In short, I'm glad that this book exists and I enjoyed rummaging through it to make a few discoveries. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Last Night a Dj Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

Although by the fifties there were many influential black DJs, it hadn't been easy for their forebears to gain employment. From the back cover: "this is the definitive story of DJing and how the DJ became the central force in the evolution of music, creating everything from hip hop, reggae and disco to house, jungle and garage. Capitol Records formalized this idea of radio promotion in 1942, the first year of the label's existence. On the other hand, I did not know the phenomenon in itself, that is, the cultural meaning and the history of the music that today has derived in dance music and in our case with the figure of the DJ. As Marshall McLuhan declared, "The radio injected a full electric charge into the world of the phonograph.

Just as a Texas disc jockey might play The Crystal Spring Ramblers and promote animal feed to ranchers, in New York a DJ would play Red Prysock and rely for his income on advertising hair oil to Harlem.

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

on America's youth" and the hearings themselves drifted frequently into questions of aesthetics rather than law. Despite its shortcomings though, I came out of LNADSML with a much greater appreciation for DJing and dance music culture, as well as its "unsung hero" status within popular music, and I think people, whether they're interested in electronic music or not, should give this book a try. We added that chapter and another one on jazz-funk, which had originally been part of the acid house chapter. The larger record companies started taking legal steps against selected radio stations and a series of lawsuits ensued.There is no denying that there is a oversimplification of the SOME modern day DJ "performances", but the majority of rising stars and underground artists coming out today are just as invested in this art form as in "good ol' days". The authors also had clear biases on gender, class, race, and sexuality within DJ culture, barely giving lip service to anyone outside the box, even though they kept repeating flatly how the genre came from queer BIPOC from the very start. References to infamous clubs such as Paradise Garage and Loft and even more famous DJ's such as Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles et. shellac shortage (a ship carrying huge amounts of the stuff had just been sunk), Capitol's chairman Glenn E.