* En anglais uniquement
While relatively unknown among U.S. audiences,
DJ Froggy looms as one of Britain's most influential DJs, transforming the scope and shape of U.K. club music by introducing live mixing into the equation. Born
Steven Howlett in London on November 8, 1949, he lost his mother as a young child and was raised by his father, an engineer with electronics firm Plessey -- his own fascination with electronics and recording quickly blossomed, and as a teen he assembled his own mobile sound system. Dubbed "
Froggy" for his habit of jumping up and down in time to the music, by the early '70s Howlett was installed as the resident DJ at the Essex club the Bird's Nest. After befriending BBC personality Mike "Emperor Rosko" Pasternak, creator of the pioneering mobile disco "The Rosko International Roadshow," he also forged a relationship with Matamp, Rosko's equipment designer of choice, and with the company custom-built a new system to accompany Radio 1 presenter Dave Lee Travis on his own roadshow dates. In early 1979,
DJ Froggy journeyed to New York City to attend a disco convention organized by Billboard magazine; on visits to the seminal disco club Paradise Garage, he studied up-close the pioneering mixing techniques of DJ
Larry Levan, who simultaneously operated two turntables while incorporating percussion elements from a third to extend records and segue seamlessly from track to track. Upon returning to London,
Froggy adopted and adapted
Levan's approach, introducing beat mixing and cross-fading between records by incorporating a pair of Technics SL-1200 Mk II turntables and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. In April 1979 he played at the first Caister Soul Weekender alongside fellow DJs Greg Edwards, Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, and Jeff Young, and with the subsequent addition of
Pete Tong, this loosely affiliated group became known as "the Soul Mafia", shaping tastes across the British club landscape throughout the decade to follow. During the early '80s,
DJ Froggy rose to mainstream prominence when he and
Tong alternated hosting duties on Peter Powell's Radio 1 drive-time showcase, popularizing singles including
Doug E. Fresh's rap classic "The Show" and
Cameo's "Back and Forth." In 1985, he charted with a 12"
James Brown megamix, and a year later scored with a remix of
the Real Thing's "You to Me Are Everything." Howlett died in Essex on March 28, 2008. His son Mark carries on the family tradition under the alias DJ Tadpole. ~ Jason Ankeny