A Brief History of DJ-ing

DJ history begins with the invention of the gramophone in 1892 by Emile Berliner, who began producing the first disc records available for public use ("Disc jockey", 2012). The world's first radio DJ was 16 year old Ray Newby, who began broadcasting in San Jose, California in 1909. The term DJ was coined by radio commentator Walter Winchell in 1935, referring to another popular announcer Martin Block. DJ stands for "disc jockey," describing the people who operated the records (a jockey is a person who operates machinery).

The world's first DJ dance party was held in 1943 by English DJ Jimmy Savile. Up until that point, DJs had been predominately on the radio creating the illusion of broadcasting live from ballrooms while bands played, when in reality they were just playing songs from records. Savile played jazz records live for the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds, a society in Otley, England. Savile is also credited with being the first DJ to use twin turntables for continuous music ("Disc jockey", 2012).

Shephard Fairey

In 1947, a nightclub called the Whiskey a Go-Go was opened in Paris, France ("Disc jockey", 2012). It was the world's first commercial disco club, and all of it's featured music came from records instead of a live band (which had been the norm up to that point). From there, discos spread throughout Europe and the United States.
 In the late 50s, sound systems were introduced from Kingston, Jamaica. Promoters began throwing large block parties in the streets centered around the DJs, who would blast music on the sound systems for people to dance to. As nightclubs and discos continued to grow, specialized DJ equipment for mixing was also introduced in the mid 60s ("Disc jockey", 2012).

DJ Francis Grasso is credited with popularizing beatmatching, the art of seamlessly transitioning between two songs with similar tempos, in 1969 at a nightclub called New York's Sanctuary ("Disc jockey", 2012).

In 1973 Kool DJ Herc,  a Jamaican immigrant widely regarded as the "father of Hip-Hop" was famous for his block parties in the Bronx. Herc noticed that some dancers would wait for the rhythmic instrumentals (the breaks) in the music to dance, so he developed a technique to prolong the breaks by mixing back and forth between two identical records (Brenner, 2002). This is considered the birth of modern turntablism, the art of using turntables to manipulate the sounds of preexisting music to create original music.

 From there the art form of DJing took off. New techniques were discovered, such as Hip-Hop DJ Grand Wizard Theodore's creation of record scratching in 1975 ("Disc jockey", 2012). Some DJs also moved away from Disco and Hip-Hop to other genres of music like House and, more recently, Dubstep.