Франсис Грассо: Диско музыканың инноваторы

American DJ

Francis Grasso (March 25, 1948 – March 20, 2001) was an American disco music disc jockey from New York City, best known for being one of the first people to beatmatch. Grasso, who attended Brooklyn Technical High School and Long Island University, started his DJ career in 1967–1968 at New York nightclub Salvation II. Later he used turntables with pitch controls, which allowed him to develop beatmatching, syncing the tempo of two records for an extended period while fading between them.

DJ Francis completely changed the game of Disco music. Before him, DJs submitted to what the patrons wanted, supplying recognizable music that would appeal to the crowd. Occasionally, DJs would add a different spin on top of these popular charts. DJ Francis was not interested in what the customers wanted, and instead provided a new, exotic array of songs, which the crowd would not have thought to ask for. He offered a full, creative performance with a narrative. He demonstrated to the DJs of later generations that the power belonged to them to create environmental moods, and that there were techniques for creating different atmospheres, and thus manipulating dancers. His musical choices were also quite different from his predecessors. He played on the funkier side of rock music, using The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin on top of heavy black rhythms such as Dyke & The Blazers or Kool & The Gang. He introduced drum heavy African sounds, and used Latin beats to entice people to dance, as well as James Brown and Motown (including The Four Tops, The Supremes, and the Temptations).