Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

by Bill Brewster

Overview

Freshly revised and chock-full of new, vibrant stories, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is the “lively and . . . necessary” (New York Times Book Review), and first and foremost definitive history of the musical outlaws who revolutionized the music industry: the disc jockeys

Twenty-five years since it first appeared, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life remains the definitive history on the musical outlaw figure who not only revolutionized the music industry but also laid the foundation for modern music as we know it today: the disc jockey. Lively front row history with a riot of firsthand voices, it is an exhilarating dive into the DJ-led evolution that set the beat for clubland and ushered in new, exciting strands of dance music, with firsthand accounts of the births of disco, hip-hop, house, techno, and EDM. Newly calling attention to the women DJs who disrupted the status quo and made a place for themselves in a traditionally all-male guild, this seminal classic is fully refreshed with even more stories, two entirely new chapters, and a foreword by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is a riveting and entertaining account of musical history and some of the most legendary parties of the century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802163905
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bill Brewster was editor of Mixmag USA and his writing appears regularly in Muzik, The Face, and The Guardian. Frank Broughton has been deputy editor of Mixmag USA and iD, and writes for Details, Rolling Stone, Hip Hop Connection, and Time Out New York. They are the co-creators of the popular website DJhistory.com. They live in England.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Thanks	xi
Part 1	The Origins of the DJ
1	Introduction: You Should Be Dancing	1
2	Beginnings (Radio): Make Believe Ballroom	19
3	Beginnings (Clubs): Night Train	43
Part 2	How the DJ Changed Music
4	Northern Soul: After Tonight Is All Over	73
5	Reggae: Wreck Up A Version	107
6	Disco: Love Is The Message	123
7	Disco 2: She Works Hard For The Money	165
8	Hip Hop: Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel	203
9	Hip Hop 2: Planet Rock	231
10	Garage: I'll Take You To Paradise	267
11	House: Can You Feel It?	291
12	Techno: The Sound	319
Part 3	The DJ Today
13	The DJ as Artist: Even Better Than The Real Thing	337
14	The DJ as Outlaw: Renegade Snares	361
15	The DJ as Superstar: God Is A DJ	383
	Sources	412
	Picture Sources	416
	Club Charts	417
	Index	427

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Last Night a DJ Saved My Life:

“The original and still the best.”—Gilles Peterson

“The chapter on Larry Levan alone transformed me into wanting to be your favorite DJ.”—Questlove 

“We can’t tell the story of dance music without speaking the names of Sharon White and Judy Weinstein, so I welcome this vital update.”—Blessed Madonna

“Brewster and Broughton . . . have written a lively and—to anyone with a more than casual interest in the history of popular music in the latter half of the 20th century—necessary volume.”—New York Times Book Review

“A riveting look at record spinning from its beginnings to the present day, the authors show that the history and art of deejaying makes for a grander and more fascinating story than one would think. . . . The book is intricately detailed and informative, filled with grand themes and historical anecdotes, all leavened with a wiseass humor that keeps the whole thing from getting too pretentious.”—Time Out

“What makes [Last Night a DJ Saved My Life] so good, besides the crisp, lucid writing, is that it also gives a fascinating, episodic history of the jive-talking radio DJs and Parisian discos that established the themes that would play out in hip-hop, disco and rave culture.”—Salon 

“These British music-mag writers deliver the goods with humor and a basic sense of good storytelling.”—Vibe 

“Brewster and Broughton exhibit considerable skill in rendering the meta-story seamless, subtly turning what is essentially an oral history, culled from original interviews and other published sources, into an orchestral piece.”—Hartford Courant 

“Like an inspired set on the wheels of steel, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life fashions a vast array of emotions, ideas, and history in[to] an extended yet entertaining program. The authors condense a century’s worth of highlights, beginning with a 1906 radio broadcast, into a tome that leaves the reader feeling like a spent dancer: uplifted, and a little overwhelmed, yet not utterly exhausted. . . . This extremely well-researched work is not only comprehensive, it’s also comprehensible. . . . Briskly paced yet thorough . . . The section on Northern Soul contextualizes this uniquely English scene for clueless Yanks superbly. . . . Ultimately, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life does what any successful music book should: It compels the reader to slap the music in question—presented in an appendix of historical playlists—on the stereo. . . . The authors clearly love their subject matter, framing meticulous facts and disparate stories with very visceral excitement.”—Kurt B. Reighley, Pulse! 

“Very informative . . . takes you way back into the ‘true roots’ of dance music and hip hop’s culture, then smoothly brings you into the future.”—Danny Tenaglia

“Exhaustive yet entertaining . . . a definitive history of the disc jockey . . . The book lovingly captures a host of compelling stories from every seminal DJ across the last century . . . . The energy which so obviously jumps from the book’s pages, as the authors culturally contextualize club history’s main players, elevates Last Night way above the ‘trainspotter tome’ a book of its ilk could easily have become.”—iD

“From counterculture to mainstream leisure, the DJ has always been at the heart of clubland . . . An illuminating, thoughtful, and insightful tome.”—Muzik  

“Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton . . . have illuminated patches of musical history long hidden from sight . . . Written with a music lover’s zeal and a populist’s scope, this is one for anyone who has ever found themselves lost on the dancefloor.”—The Face 

From the Publisher

The influence that disc jockeys have exerted over the music industry for the past 40 years has been subtle yet steady, and vastly underrated. However, in the age of raves and techno music, disc jockeys have stepped from the shadows of their turntables to claim their place. With DJs like Fat Boy Slim and Moby burning up the charts themselves, there could be no better time for a book like Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, a comprehensive account of the people who make "pop music" popular.

bn.com

Beginning with the contention that the disc jockey is "dance music's most important figure," Brewster and Broughton persuasively argue that the contemporary DJ is the epitome of the postmodern artist and that disc jockeys have long influenced the evolution of American musical tastes. Brewster and Broughton's ardent history is one of barriers and sonic booms, spanning almost 100 years, including nods to pioneers Christopher Stone, Martin Block, Douglas "Jocko" Henderson, Bob "Wolfman Jack" Smith and Alan "Moondog" Freed. Along the lines of Kurt B. Reighley's recent Looking for the Perfect Beat: The Art and Culture of the DJ, this is an obsessively unabridged and ever-unraveling (the authors will offer updates at www.djhistory.com) chronology of DJs and the music--northern soul, reggae, disco, hip-hop, garage, house and techno--they have fostered, and, more accurately perhaps, the music that has fostered them. So as not to miss a note, the authors, both former editors at Mixmag USA and contributing writers to The Face, interviewed more than 100 DJs, dancers and scenesters and elicited some vibrant, pull-quote anecdotes, especially in the hip-hop chapters. What comes to light makes sense: readers learn that the DJ is a distinctly American invention (Reginald A. Fessenden in 1906), but they came into their own, and into wealth and fame, in Britain (case in point: Paul Oakenfold). Brewster and Broughton's subtext is refreshing: rather than draw curt lines between American and British contributions, they show how intimate the countries were in forging a communications phenomenon. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A lively and necessary volume . . . The club D.J., as Brewster and Broughton thoroughly and entertainingly demonstrate, is not only the unsinging but also the unsung hero of popular music . . .The book is a treasure trove of anecdotes...
—The New York Times Book Review

Mim Udovitch