V-Discs, Clubmobiles and a Platter Pilot
Dancehalls, Glitterballs and DJs - From the Pleasure Garden to the Discotheque - Bruce Lindsay
Bruce Lindsay [+]
Music Journalist and Social Historian
Bruce Lindsay is a freelance music journalist and social history researcher. He is the author of Shellac and Swing: A Social History of the Gramophone in Britain (Fonthill Media, 2020), Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival: The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox (Equinox Publishing, 2020) and Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room (Equinox, 2023).
Description
After the USA entered the war, the US government produced V-discs, specially-recorded for circulation to American forces overseas. American troops in Britain were visited by young women with portable gramophones, travelling around in converted buses known as Clubmobiles. They organised dances to boost morale, partnering the troops and often playing V-Discs which were helpfully labelled with information about style and tempo. The Jitterbug craze scandalized some dancers, just as the Tango had a few decades earlier. The first star disc jockeys emerged in the USA and by the mid-1940s Britain’s first modern disc jockeys were gigging in clubs and pubs.