The question of the Deejay

Although people who select and play records (or CDs!) have been around since radio began, the DJ as musician is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the ’70s, the radio DJ was like a guru. You followed their programming avidly because they introduced you to new music that was cool, stylish and interesting. It had nothing to do, as one would tend to associate today with the term ‘DJ’, with dance music. Famous American DJs, like Alan Freed in the ’50s (who popularised rock & roll and helped introduce black R&B to white audiences) or Wolfman Jack in the ’60s and ’70s, were arbiters of musical taste. It was not until perhaps the ’80s, really, that radio DJs became more like simple voice-over artists tying together the song rotation imposed by radio executives.