The Birth of the Radio DJ — 1920s America and the Beginning of the Word 'DJ'

The Origin of the Word “Disc Jockey”

DJ (Disc Jockey) — one who handles the disc (record) as if it were a horse jockey. This word was first used in English in 1935, when the American journalist Walter Winchell coined the term to refer to a radio host.

That is, the origin of DJ as a profession is “radio host” — completely different from today’s club DJ or hip-hop DJ. The DJ in the technical sense — connecting records on two turntables, doing scratch — would have to wait for 1970s Bronx.

The 1920s — The Rapid Expansion of Radio Broadcasting

Commercial radio broadcasting, the precondition for the DJ, began in 1920 with KDKA in Pittsburgh, USA, receiving the world’s first commercial radio license. Through the 1920s, radio stations exploded in number in America and Europe, and receiving sets spread into homes.

Early radio broadcasts were “live-performance-centered.” Orchestras and jazz bands were invited to the studio, and their performances were sent out on the airwaves. Playing records on air had problems with copyright, sound quality, and program format, and was not mainstream.

Martin Block and “Make Believe Ballroom” (1935)

In 1935, at New York’s WNEW radio, Martin Block started the program “Make Believe Ballroom,” which made the prototype of the DJ program that leads to today.

Block’s inventions:

• Staging as if broadcasting live from a fictitious ballroom — actually just playing records in the studio
• One host carrying the whole program with personality
• Incorporating selection requests through listeners’ letters

This was a hit, and other stations across America copied the format. “Playing music, but with the host as the lead” — this format became the mainstream model of radio broadcasting for over 60 years afterward.

Alan Freed — The DJ Who Named Rock and Roll

The person who spread R&B and rock and roll on radio in 1950s America was Alan Freed (1921-1965). From his program “Moondog Show” at WJW radio in Cleveland (from 1951), he introduced Black music to white teenagers in great quantity.

• Popularized the word “Rock and Roll” — originally Black slang; Freed used it repeatedly on the program and made it stick
• A music program that crossed the race barrier — that a white DJ in 1950s America was enthusiastically pushing Black music was a major social phenomenon
• 1954, moved to WINS in New York. Became a DJ with nationwide influence

Freed was ruined in the 1959 payola scandal (revealing he had taken money from record companies for his selections), but he had proven that “a DJ can become someone who moves the music scene.”

DJ = “Music Curator × Personality × Selector”

The DJ image of the 1920s-1950s is quite different from today’s club DJ, but it connects directly to today’s curator-type DJ and radio-show-type DJ (BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong, etc.).

Roles of the DJ at this time:

Element	Content
Music curator	Digging up new / buried tracks
Personality	Carrying the program with voice, talk, and character
Selector	Designing the flow of an hour
Handling requests	Reflecting listeners’ voices

Of these, “personality” and “selection” are inherited by today’s club DJ. Music curatorship is still the core of the DJ, and requests remain in transformed form — in Boiler Room and Twitch’s live chat.

From This Article to the Next

The word and concept of “DJ” was born in 1930s American radio. But the elements of “connecting two records,” “making people dance to music,” and “the club as a space” are not yet in place. The next article enters the DJ culture of early disco started by David Mancuso’s The Loft and Nicky Siano’s The Gallery in 1970s New York.