Some say that Jimmy Savile invented the idea of the disc jockey as we think we know it in Manchester in the 1940s. An ex-miner looking for a new way to earn a living, he thought it might be something to play music for dancers to dance to that didn't as such require musicians. He used his collection of 78 rpm jazz records and played them on a couple of decks that he hooked up together in order that there wouldn't be too much of a gap as he changed records, tossing in a bit of patter as he did switch from one deck to the other. It was a little strange for a room to be filled with music that wasn't being generated by a band of musicians, but in the end, there was something to dance to, and someone creating an atmosphere, altering the mood, choosing the flow of the music, what followed what, and in many ways nothing has really changed since Jimmy's wild dance parties, give or take how fashions have changed, technology advanced, light shows developed, hedonism intensified and rhythms mutated.
Savile, a strange, driven man with demented charisma, which have ended up being the sort of things we associate with the disc jockey, went on to become a household name, establishing the role and national presence of the disc jockey, essentially by planning the fun of a nation, by organising their nights out as a combination of entrepreneur, celebrity, hustler, music programmer, broadcaster, nutcase and entertainment racketeer.
Situationist philosophy tends to get talked up as being a main influence on the building and success of Manchester's Hacienda in the 80s, but to some extent it was just a continuation of Savile's insane energy levels, and the sort of decadent nightclubs he set up in Manchester during the 60s while he was also presenting the new fangled Top of the Pops, inventing his ornate, grotesque and self-aggrandising radio personality and developing his brand as non-threatening, if undeniably creepy, family entertainer. Savile helped invent the idea of the disc jockey as someone who not only played the records and possibly shaped the charts, forming the peculiar, torrid connection between act and audience that was always an essential part of the many charged tensions operating inside the music business, but who also set up their own fame, entering show business through the side door, and then trying to take over. One of their many skills was the ability to always be in the right place at the right time as history was made around them, so that they entered history. They were the filter through which music passed, whether on radio or in club, and wherever there was pop and pop stars there would be the DJ, because the music had to be sequenced, popularised introduced, promoted, playlisted, put into a context.
The likes of Savile could exploit their position as the special ones who brought you the music, as if somehow they were the ones responsible for the music they introduced on Top of the Pops, intimately connected to whatever was No 1 in the charts. And while records came and went, and hit records were replaced by a new set of hit records, the disc jockey remained constant – not so much always in the charts, but always bringing news of the charts, and always playing the new records first, as if by magic, because who else was going to do such a thing?
Pete Tong is a descendant of Savile and co, even if as a music enthusiast he's more in the tradition of John Peel, whose version of being the DJ was connected to the possibility that you could be such a thing as someone who loved music and not because it was a part of show business. Peel cloaked his undoubtedly conceited, overweening DJ tendencies with moderated shyness and a genuine passion for new music, and directed his eccentricity towards locating and celebrating the eccentricities of others, which sometimes meant being the very first to hear and play the more interesting new music. Learning from Peel, Tong doesn't make a show of his influences, he rejects corn, catchphrases, medallions, daft costumes and whatever the modern equivalent is of opening the supermarket, even as he expands his empire and celebrity status.
As a busy, cultural icon turning his passions into notoriety, he's more Savile than Peel, he's as much the entrepreneur, the planner of parties, the organiser of fun, the populariser of new tracks, the celebrity often more known than the music he plays. He's much more about having an obvious good time than Peel, but not to the extent of being a mere peddler of ostentatious novelty. Tong contains a Savile-like understanding of giving people what they want, of how to grab, charm and satisfy the masses, of how to follow trends, with a Peel-like love for the experimental and progressive, of how to see, and hear, ahead, and therefore sometimes set trends.
Tong's area of expertise has always been dance, since the days he was a writer for Blues and Soul magazine in the early 80s, and he's always been infatuated by where dance music is heading, and even as this has put him right in the centre of the dance, it also means he's never become as mainstream, as vulgar, as all over the shop, as Savile. He's lasted, for 20 years as a Radio 1 disc jockey in the increasingly crowded dance world, as fashions and genres have divided, sub-divided, gone, returned, remixed themselves, stayed the same, turned inside out, because he can balance the uncommercial curiosity of Peel with the unashamed crowd-pleasing initiative of Savile.
As a Radio 1 disc jockey Tong might be the end of an era, the final playing out of the idea that a disc jockey could have such an impact on the music a nation bought, and danced to, the final fading away of the big time Radio 1 DJ who was always there at the centre of pop history, whether we liked it or not, however irritating and obstructive they were, because the music business had ended up having this shape. In between the studio source of the music, and the industry that turned it into product, there was the DJ, taking the gift they were given, and then passing it on as if they alone were responsible for this gift.
As an international DJ superstar, someone who translated his skills, music taste and opportunities into the kind of success Savile could only dream about, and Peel have nightmares about, the disintegration of the music business doesn't restrict and reduce Tong. The performing disc jockey can adapt to any situation, whatever the business structure, the distribution methods, as long as people still want to have fun, and have fun with each other. The DJ's job ultimately is to show people the fun, and the soundtrack to the fun, and how to escape everyday boredom. Without the disc jockey mapping out gratification and enjoyment, linking the rhythms, setting the controls, making whoopee and leading the escape into bliss, it's all just people milling about in a dark room. Savile's carefree music party existed before the music business established itself, and Tong's update will exist after it has fallen apart.
But Tong is 50 next month. The Peel part of him, the unpretentious, cult-y music obsessive really only interested in the next great record, the next surprising sound, the latest unexpected hybrid, means that age doesn't really matter. The Savile side, the restless, anxious selling of perpetual youth, the postponement of growing up, the commoditisation of having a good time, the charging from club to club and city to city putting on a great show of keeping up to speed with the demanding changes in musical fashion, might yet prove a strain.