The History of the Dj

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The History of the Dj                                            By Christopher Brawn

        A Disc Jockey is a person who plays out pre- recorded songs using compact discs, vinyl or tape depending on what they prefer. The music genre that the Dj decides to play out all depends on what type of crowd he’s in front of and what pleasures himself. Dj’s can be heard at many places including weddings, nightclubs, school parties and radio. There are many techniques to Dj’ing these are all shown depending what Dj is playing out and what type of music it is. Drum and Bass Dj’s tend to chop and drop while House Dj’s tend to use what’s known as the original technique; blending. Scratching and juggling are two other types of mixing techniques. While these are all well known techniques, a Dj is not renowned just for carrying out these types of mixing. It takes a special edge to be recognised as an established Dj. Some Dj’s have some Dj’s don’t. In the assignment I will be giving you four excellent examples of Dj’s that have made it in the music business and telling you how they’ve influenced turntabalism and Dj’ing in the past 30 decades.

        Jimmy Saville, the former Jim’ll fix it arguably was the pioneer of Dj’ing. Jimmy Saville was the first Dj to mix two records using two turntables. This accomplishment occurred in the late 1940’s where the young Jimmy held discos at halls and wherever was suitable enough. Jimmy’s nights attracted the young people of his generation who wanted to stay out late and hear good music. Before Jimmy Saville pioneered two turntables, a Dj would have to talk between songs because he wouldn’t of been able to change the record quick enough, this allowed dancers to carry on jigging without stopping between songs. From Manchester where it all happened, Jimmy’s pioneer move spread around the country and also overseas. Jimmy’s career really hit off when he was offered a job on radio station Luxembourg while working in a Leeds dancehall. In his nine years of working on the station he picked up the top British Dj award eight times. In 1964 he started to present the first ever Top of The Pops on television. Even though there was not much Dj from the 70’s onwards, Jimmy Saville was renowned for what he did to the Dj’ing business because by then Dj’ing had evolved at an incredible pace.

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        The next Dj, Paul Oakenfold has accomplished things that any other Dj would die for. Paul started out playing cool sounding soul cuts in a wine bar located in Convent Garden, late seventies with Trevor Fung a close mate. He travelled to NYC and at that time Hip Hop was really hitting out. When back at London he picked up an A & R  job for Champion and believe or not was at the forefront in signing Hip Hop acts such as Salt and Pepa and Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. While on a Holiday in a so ...

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