Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, written by Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton, both are writers and DJs themselves. It’s about the history of the Disc Jockey(DJ), the book title came from Indeep’s song. The book also has an accompanying soundtrack.

Foreword
Some critics have accused DJs of simply “making money by playing other people’s records.” But over time, DJs have come to play important roles in many aspects of music and culture. A DJ’s job is to create a space for people who want to listen, dance, and connect.

Understanding history matters because stories themselves have power. DJs are, in James Murphy’s words, “charming and beautiful human beings”—yet many of them are unaware of their own history, blind to the significance of their role.

Preface
“There’s not a problem that I can’t fix – ’cos I can do it in the mix.”
The authors of this book started DJing because they “wanted to earn the music we loved some respect.” They wanted people to recognize the value of DJing as something complex, influential, and full of its own unique aesthetic.

Introduction
You should be dancing
Dancing has long been tied to religious rituals. Dancing in clubs can be seen as a form of worship—and the DJ plays a key role in guiding that experience. As the author writes, “A truly great DJ, just for a moment, can make a whole room fall in love.” DJs influence people’s emotions and states of mind.
DJing is a form of communication between the DJ and the audience. Whether the experience is good or bad depends on how skillfully the DJ guides the energy of the room.

The Lord of the Dance
Since dancing has been associated with religion for centuries—like in the biblical phrase “There is a time to dance”—the DJ can also be seen as a kind of spiritual figure. In today’s club scenes, DJs are the new lords of the dance—even though they still earn a living by playing other people’s music.

What a DJ Actually Does
A DJ must know their chosen music better than anyone else. Their job is to select and shape music to fit the time, space, and people perfectly. A good DJ stays curious, keeps digging for records, and remains hungry—even if the lifestyle is difficult and uncertain.

Presenting or Performing
DJing is about presenting, introducing, and performing music for the audience’s enjoyment. A “set” is a kind of performance, with music selection and track order at its core.
To make people dance, a DJ must understand song structure, how tempo and style affect the room, and how to blend tracks seamlessly—often listening to two songs at once, one in each ear!

The Art of DJing
Of course, technical skill matters—but DJing is also deeply emotional and improvisational. A DJ reads the dancefloor, senses the mood, and controls the relationship between music and people. The listener is just as important as the DJ; a great night happens when both sides are in sync.

DJing’s Historical Maleness
Female DJs have often been overlooked in the history of DJing. For a long time, the term “DJ” referred only to men. Like many areas of popular culture, club culture has sexualized women, making it harder for individual female DJs to be recognized. Only recently have women started to gain more visibility in this space. Meanwhile, male DJs have also faced criticism, with some being accused of coercive behavior and sexual assault.

Better Than a Band?
Since club nights are cheap and accessible, they’ve become more popular than live performances. The club scene is thriving, with more DJs than ever.
Unlike traditional musicians, DJs have fewer limitations—they need only a small, flexible setup to deliver powerful music experiences.

The Postmodern Angle
Like writing a book, DJing is about creating emotional narratives through sound. DJs are like musical editors, selecting tracks within a genre and arranging them for maximum effect. They both consume and produce music—buying records, remixing, and making new tracks. From an academic perspective, DJing is a deeply postmodern practice.

Musical Revolutionary
The best combinations of music can shock even the original artists. DJs are powerful figures in the music industry, producing and remixing massive amounts of contemporary dance music. Their work is grounded in knowledge and skill. DJing has changed how we create and experience music—transforming the record into an independent artistic object.

Taking Music Further
This book tells the oral history of DJs starting from 1906.
“From origins as an opportunistic on-air salesman, via musical matchmaker, tastemaker and hit-maker, to the ruler of globalized pop—more than any other figure, the DJ has taken music further.” (p.20)

Chapter 1 Beginnings, Radio – Make Believe Ballroom

The world’s very first DJ was Canadian engineer Reginald A. Fessenden, who sang and played O Holy Night and the record Largo from the opera Xerxes at 9 PM on Christmas Eve, 1906, to a group of telegraph operators in the Atlantic. Before this, people usually only received coded radio signals over the airwaves.

The Power of the DJ

To talk about the power of DJs, we first need to acknowledge the importance of radio. What makes radio special is its intimacy—it can make listeners feel like the most important person in the world. The voices and music create a strong sense of community. The DJ is the main character in this radio-created space, holding the power to select and combine music, shift styles, and shape public taste. More importantly, DJs help connect different races and communities.

The Age of Radio

We must highlight the world’s first recorded female DJ, Eunice Randall, who produced a youth-focused music program in 1913 in Boston. Her work positively influenced young people’s interest in radio.

While the rest of the world saw radio as a government tool for education and information, America saw its potential as a mass advertising medium. Since then, radio’s economic function has shaped its modern form.

DJs helped save radio from the dull and repetitive daytime programming.

DJ vs. Musicians / Music Publishers / Record Labels

As record sales increased, power shifted to record companies and recording artists. Still, DJs quickly gained popularity, fortune, and notoriety.

Musicians felt threatened, fearing their work could be replaced by radio DJs. They criticized the broadcast of recorded music—calling it De Forest’s prime devil—since playing a record on the radio was much cheaper than hiring a live performer (and often didn’t require performance fees).

The real power in the music industry lay with the publishers. There was an ongoing struggle between powerful corporate publishers and independents—for example, ASCAP vs. BMI. While the former chased profit, the latter allowed for more musical diversity.

In short, during the early years, the entire music industry stood against DJs.

The Professional Announcer

The term “record jockeys” refers to DJs “riding over the music”—speaking or singing alongside the records. Linguistically, “jock” refers to a man or guy, and “jockey” can suggest a trickster. So DJs are literally skillful manipulators—jockeying their voice and music.
(To understand ‘jockeying’: the song “Not Your Friend” by Case? The lyric “she’s jockin’ me” suggests someone trying to manipulate or get close to someone.)

Post-war America embraced capitalism, where market success meant everything. Once the market realized how profitable DJs and radio shows could be, radio DJing became a respected profession in the 1950s and ’60s. DJs became powerful hitmakers who could launch careers overnight.
(“I don’t care what it is. I want to make hits.” – Bill Randle)

Black Radio and Rhythm & Blues

The terminology for Black music on Billboard changed over time: “Harlem Hit Parade” (1942) → “Race Records” (1945) → “Rhythm and Blues” (1949). Post-WWII, as radio became more localized, DJs helped “race music” reach broader audiences. DJs also played a key role in shaping and spreading new genres.

To attract more urban Black listeners, radio stations began hiring Black DJs. They became beacons for their communities—symbols of success in a largely white-dominated industry. Their presence helped instill pride.
(“I’m Black and I’m proud.” – James Brown)

At that time, hearing Black people speak on the radio—especially in “white” ways—was rare. Despite ongoing racism, Black DJs helped usher in a new era.

Talking Jive

Like any culture, Black Americans developed their own language and style. “Jive” vernacular often showed up in lyrics, e.g., “If you want hip to the tip and bop to the top, you get some threads that just won’t stop.”

There’s a poetic, even romantic, side to DJing. DJs are creators, but they often face loneliness and misunderstanding. DJ Douglas “Jocko” Henderson once sent astronaut Yuri Gagarin a telegram in 1961:
“Congratulations. I’m glad you made it. Now it’s not so lonely up here.”

As Black music gained popularity, white DJs began mimicking Black slang to connect with the culture. Some even trained to “sound Black,” creating the concept of the “white negro”—a deeply problematic and racist practice.

Alan Freed and Rock ’n’ Roll

According to this book, the term rock ’n’ roll was coined by DJ Alan Freed on March 21, 1952. That night, he hosted a music event at Cleveland Arena that drew a massive crowd. When many couldn’t get in, chaos broke out. The press labeled them as “mobs,” and authorities panicked—there had never been so many Black people gathered in public before, and they feared a riot.

Originally, “rock ’n’ roll” referred to rhythm and blues music. The term helped Black music reach wider audiences, even though today it’s often associated with mainstream rock. In Black culture, “rock” and “roll” were slang terms for sex. Critics argued that this music reinforced negative stereotypes, with lyrics about drinking, gambling, and sex.

Despite the backlash, Freed promoted Black music unapologetically. As a white DJ, he used his position to bridge racial gaps and draw massive, mixed-race audiences.

But Freed’s activism had consequences. After the Cleveland event, local media pushed for him to leave town. A federal investigation into payola (taking money to play certain records) targeted him—ultimately ruining his career and contributing to his early death. White DJs involved in payola scandals, by contrast, often faced no consequences.

The lasting impact of rock ’n’ roll was cultural: it introduced many Americans to Black culture for the first time. And no one played a greater role in this cultural shift than the DJ.