DJ History

In 1935, American commentator Walter Winchell described Martin Block, radio announcer from New York's WNEW for the first time in history a "Disc Jockey"

In 1941, due to Martin Block's success with his on-air-show "Make Believe Ballroom" the term "Disc Jockey" appeared for the first time in a weekly entertainment trade magazine called "Variety".

By 1943, Jimmy Savile successfully launched the world's first DJ party by playing jazz records in the upstairs function room of the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds in England. 

The 1950's, introduced the first sound system concept in Kingston Jamaica. A group of DJ's, Engineers and MC's would load up generators, turntables, huge speakers and throw massive street parties. The sound system concept gained it's popularity mainly on one thing, the DJ's having new music. This in turn put a spotlight on the DJ and labelled them a selector.

By the mid 1960's nightclubs and discos started to grow across the United States and it was a fierce battle between the big bands and the DJs. 

In 1969, American DJ Francis Grasso popularized the technique of beat matching at New York's Sanctuary nightclub.

Fast Forward to 1973 with DJ Kool Herc as he developed a technique of mixing back and forth between two identical records manipulating the sound thus paving a path for Hip Hop DJ Grand Wizard Theodore to invent the scratching technique by accident.

With a solid foundation formed and a great respect for the knowledge of the DJ, in the mid 1980's the wedding and banquet business changed dramatically by replacing the big band's of yesterday with the DJ's of today.

During the early 1990's the Compact Disc was introduced and surpassed the vinyl record making it easier for Disc Jockey's to carry a larger amount of music in a smaller amount of space thus expanding the demand of mixing more music into their nightly sets and having the ability to have more requests at their fingertips. Unfortunately, the record industry started to decline.

In 1992 the MP3 was born and by 1998 the first MP3 digital audio player was released. 

When the new millennium hit and people noticed the convenience and popularity of the MP3, the power of laptops spawned a new type of DJ. The Digital DJ.

2004 changed everything and Serato released Serato Scratch Live. This program would allow the DJ's of today and the pioneers of yesterday to pay homage to the greats and rotate full circle and return to the original 12" vinyl record.