The history of radio disc jockeys covers the time when gramophone records were first transmitted by experimental radio broadcasters to present day radio personalities who host shows featuring a variety of recorded music.
For a number of decades beginning in the 1930s, the term "disc jockey", "DJ", "deejay", or "jock"Michael C Keith. The Radio Station: Broadcast, Satellite & Internet. Taylor & Francis; 13 December 2006. . p. 52–. was exclusively used to describe on-air personalities who played selections of popular recorded music on radio broadcasting stations.
The term "disc jockey" first appeared in print in a 1941 issue of Variety magazine,Ben Fong-Torres. The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio. Backbeat; 2001. . p. 22–.Marc Fisher. Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation. Random House Publishing Group; 2 April 2009. . p. 13–. although the origin of the term is generally attributed to American radio news commentator Walter Winchell who used it to describe radio presenter Martin Block's practice of introducing phonograph recordings to create a Make Believe Ballroom experience for radio listeners. The term combined "disc", referring to phonograph disc records, and "jockey", denoting the DJs practice of riding the audio gain, or alternately, riding a song to success and popularity.
Culminating in the "golden age" of Top 40 radio, from approximately 1955 to 1975, radio DJs established a style of fast talking patter to bookend three minute pop songs. Unlike the modern club DJ who mixes transitions between songs to create a continuous flow of music, radio DJs played individual songs or music tracks while voicing announcements, introductions, comments, jokes, and commercials in between each song or short series of songs.
During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, radio DJs exerted considerable influence on popular music, especially during the Top 40 radio era, because of their ability to introduce new music to the radio audience and promote or control which songs would be given airplay.
1900s to 1950s
In 1892, Emile Berliner began commercial production of his gramophone records, the first disc records to be offered to the public. The earliest broadcasts of recorded music were made by radio engineers and experimenters. On Christmas Eve 1906, American Reginald A. Fessenden broadcast both live and recorded music from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. In 1907, American inventor Lee de Forest broadcast a recording of the William Tell Overture from his laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City, claiming "Of course, there weren't many receivers in those days, but I was the first disc jockey".
Ray Newby, of Stockton, California claimed on a 1965 episode of CBS I've Got a Secret to be regularly playing records on a small transmitter while a student at Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose, California in 1909.Ray Newby appearance on CBS' I've Got a Secret, 27 September 1965. Secret listed as: "'I was the world's first radio disc jockey' (in 1909)." Rebroadcast on the Game Show Network on 22 May 2008. Elman B. Meyers started broadcasting a daily program in New York City in 1911 consisting mostly of recorded music. In 1914, his wife Sybil True broadcast records borrowed from a local music store.
In 1917 Captain Horace Donisthorpe, who was training radio operators for the British Army near Worcester, England, made unofficial broadcasts as engineer from a field. At first his wife Gertrude spoke into the microphone to Captain Donisthorpe alone, but later she broadcast to army camps nearby playing gramophone records. In 1967, she spoke about these experiments in a BBC radio programme called "Scrapbook for 1917". The first official British DJ was Christopher Stone, who in 1927 convinced the BBC to let him broadcast a program consisting of American and American-influenced jazz records interspersed with his ad libbed introductions.
One of the first woman disc jockeys was Halloween Martin. She was on WBBM (AM) in Chicago, as early as 1929, hosting a morning program she called the "Musical Clock." She played up-beat songs, gave the time and temperature, and read the latest weather.Jane Connolly. "Meet DePaul Legend Halloween Martin." DePaul University Archives. Martin's morning radio show format was uncommon in the late 1920s.
In 1935, American radio commentator Walter Winchell used the term "disc jockey" (the combination of disc, referring to the disc records, and jockey, which is an operator of a machine) as a description of radio announcer Martin Block, the first announcer to become a star. While his audience was awaiting developments in the Lindbergh kidnapping, Block played records and created the illusion that he was broadcasting from a ballroom, with the nation's top dance bands performing live. The show, which he called Make Believe Ballroom, was an instant hit.
Block was notable for his considerable influence on a records popularity. Block's program on station WNEW was highly successful, and Block was described as "the make-all, break-all of records. If he played something, it was a hit". Block later negotiated a multimillion-dollar contract with ABC for a syndicated nationwide radio show.
The earliest printed use of the term "disc jockey" appeared on August 13, 1941 when Variety published "... Gilbert is a disc jockey, who sings with his records." By the end of World War II, disc jockeys had established a reputation, as "hitmakers", someone whose influence "could start an artist's career overnight".
In the early radio age, broadcasters used "live" orchestras as well as prerecorded sound. Content typically included comedy, drama, news, music, and sports reporting. Most radio stations had an orchestra or band on the payroll. The Federal Communications Commission also clearly favored live music, providing accelerated license approval to stations promising not to use any recordings for their first three years on the air. Many noted recording artists tried to keep their recorded works off the air by having their records labeled as not being legal for airplay. It took a Federal court ruling in 1940 to establish that a recording artist had no legal right to control the use of a record after it was sold.
Disputes with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) affected radio DJs during World War II. ASCAP and AFM cited the decline in demand for live appearances of musical artists due to the proliferation of radio disc jockeys playing recorded music. The disputes were settled in 1944.
1950s to present
The postwar period coincided with the rise of the radio disc jockey as a celebrity separate from the radio station, also known as a "radio personality". In the days before station-controlled playlists, the DJ often followed their personal tastes in music selection. DJs also played a role in exposing rock and roll artists to large, national audiences.
While at WERE (1300 AM) in Cleveland, Ohio, DJ Bill Randle was one of the first to introduce Elvis Presley to radio audiences in the northeastern U.S. At WMCA (AM), DJ Jack Spector was the first New York City radio personality to play the new Beatles' Capitol Records' single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
A top-rated radio host at WINS in New York City in the mid 1960s was Murray Kaufman, aka Murray the K. Kaufman took over the station's 7-11PM time period for several years. His show was known for its frenetic pace that incorporated segues, jingles, sound effects, and antics. After being invited by Beatles manager Brian Epstein to travel with the band, he came to be referred to as the "Fifth Beatle".
Notable U.S. radio disc jockeys of the period included Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Casey Kasem, and their British counterparts included the BBC's Brian Matthew and Alan Freeman, Radio London's John Peel, Radio Caroline's Tony Blackburn, and Radio Luxembourg's Jimmy Savile.
Alan Freed is commonly referred to as the "father of rock and roll" due to his promotion of the music and his introduction of the term rock and roll on radio in the early 1950s. Freed also made a practice of presenting music by African-American artists rather than cover versions by white artists on his radio program. Freed's career ended when it was shown that he had accepted payola, a practice that was highly controversial at the time, resulting in his being fired from his job at WABC.
WLAC radio DJ John R. (aka John Richbourg) in Nashville, Tennessee adopted the African-American Vernacular English of African-American DJ's in the early 1950s. Richbourg's practice of imitating African-American street dialect of the mid-twentieth century was so successful, that WLAC programmed an entire cohort of white DJ's that spoke like blacks did while playing music that was popular in the black community. It was not common knowledge that WLAC DJs were white until the mid-1960s. By then, the rebellious youth market made the nightly rhythm and blues station the one they tuned to for rock and roll, as atmospherics carried the signal enabling the station to be heard throughout much of the North American continent and Caribbean islands.
Bob Smith (aka Wolfman Jack) began his career as an announcer on XERF located in Mexico and became an influential DJ who advocated for African American music on his long running rock and roll radio show. Many people thought Smith was a black DJ until he appeared as himself in the 1973 film American Graffiti. Smith hosted TV shows such as Midnight Special and Rock and Roll Palace.
A number of actors and media personalities began their careers as traditional radio disc jockeys who played and introduced records, such as Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, talk show host Art Bell, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, and Howard Stern. Dick Clark was a radio DJ at WFIL in Philadelphia before he began hosting WFIL-TV's American Bandstand.Lisa Jo Sagolla. Rock 'n' Roll Dances of the 1950s. ABC-CLIO; 12 September 2011. . p. 54–.
Radio DJs often acted as commercial brokers for their program and actively solicited paying sponsors. They could also negotiate which sponsors would appear on their program. Many wrote and delivered the commercials themselves, talking the place of advertising agencies who formerly executed these responsibilities.
Drive time or "morning drive" shows capitalized on a listening audience of weekday commuters and parents getting children ready for school. Morning DJs such as New York's Don Imus and DJ teams such as Mark and Brian in Los Angeles are examples of notable radio personalities whose morning drive format included playing songs as well as sharing stories and taking listener phone calls.Lessons Learned from Popular Culture. SUNY Press; 28 June 2016. . p. 92–.
Radio disc jockey programs were often syndicated, at first with hourly musical programs with entertainers such as Dick Powell and Peggy Lee acting as radio DJs introducing music and providing continuity and commentary, and later with radio personalities such as Casey Kasem who hosted the first nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show.
Record hops In the 1950s, radio disc jockeys from local and regional radio stations took advantage of their popularity and augmented their income by playing records and performing as master of ceremonies at teen dance parties called sock hops or record hops. The term came about because these events were commonly held at high schools, often in the school gym or cafeteria, and dancers were asked to remove their hard-soled shoes to protect the varnished floor of the gymnasium.
Record hops became strongly associated with early rock and roll. "At the Hop", a 1957 hit song by Danny and the Juniors, described the scene, "where the jockey is the smoothest, and the music is the coolest at the hop".