Froggy: DJ who brought mixing to the UK
Thursday, 1 May 2008
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Until Froggy introduced live mixing in the late 1970s, DJing had changed very little since Jimmy Savile began using two gramophone players and a microphone in the Mecca ballrooms after the Second World War.
Froggy took his concept further when he started beat mixing and cross-fading between records after incorporating twin Technics SL-1200 Mk II turntables and a reel-to-reel tape recorder into the mixing console and powerful sound system he had designed. In April 1979, he played at the first Caister Soul Weekender, in a holiday camp near Great Yarmouth, amongst a line-up of DJs – Greg Edwards, Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent and Jeff Young – who became known as the Soul Mafia. They were soon joined by a young upstart called Pete Tong who went on to an illustrious career as a club DJ and broadcaster.
In the early Eighties, Froggy also pioneered mixing on British radio during his regular "Stepping Out" slot on Peter Powell's drivetime show on Radio 1, alternating with Tong. An in-demand mixer, he charted with a megamix of 12 James Brown tracks in 1985 and the Decade remix of the Real Thing's "You To Me are Everything" in 1986, and also made radio edits of many popular Eighties dance tracks, such as "Love Town" by Booker Newbury III, "Change of Heart" by Change, "The Show" by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew and "Back and Forth" by Cameo.
Froggy was born Steven Howlett in the East End of London in 1949. He lost his mother at an early age and developed an interest in his father's work as an engineer at Plessey, the electronics company. The way sound frequencies came out of radios and speakers held a particular fascination for the teenager and, by the time he had taken his City & Guilds qualification, he had already built his own mobile disco. In the early Seventies, he became Froggy – his nickname due to his habit of jumping up and down to the music – and was the resident DJ at the Bird's Nest in Romford, Essex.
Always keen to observe other DJs and learn from them, he drew inspiration from Emperor Rosko, whose sound system had been designed by Matamp, the Huddersfield company run by Mat Mathias, with whom Froggy would subsequently develop the Matamp Super Nova mixer. In the mid-Seventies, Froggy custom-built a system to work with Dave Lee Travis on the Radio 1 presenter's Roadshow dates up and down Britain.
In 1979, Froggy travelled to New York to attend a disco convention organised by Billboard magazine. He studied at close quarters what was happening at the leading clubs of the time, including Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage. The way the DJ Larry Levan simultaneously ran two turntables while looping other percussive elements on a third to extend tracks and create continuous, seamless segues made a big impression on Froggy.
"Back in England, the mixing units did not have the capability of mixing two records together," he recalled. "There were no cross-faders as such, but by the time I returned I had been taught how to customise my equipment. It sounds amazing, but in those days there wasn't even the facility to hear two records in your headphones at the same time."
Since his sound system was used for the Soul All-Dayers and Weekenders which became such a phenomenon in the south of England in the early Eighties, Froggy's innovative approach to mixing was soon picked up by other DJs as dance music went from underground to mainstream. Later, he hired out the enormous speakers to the organisers of raves at the height of the acid house movement.
In the late Seventies, Froggy was one of the regulars picking new soul and funk releases on Robbie Vincent's Radio London soul show. He subsequently hosted his own Best Disco In Town show on Capital.
His son Mark – nicknamed Tadpole – is also a DJ.
Pierre Perrone
Steven Howlett (Froggy), disc jockey: born London 8 November 1949; three times married (one son, two daughters); died Romford, Essex 28 March 2008.
