Disco Madness: Walter Gibbons and the Legacy of Turntablism and Remixology

This story begins with a skinny white DJ mixing between the breaks of
obscure Motown records with the ambidextrous intensity of an octopus on
speed. It closes with the same man, debilitated and virtually blind, fumbling
for gospel records as he spins up eternal hope in a fading dusk. In between
Walter Gibbons worked as a cutting-edge discotheque DJ and remixer who,
thanks to his pioneering reel-to-reel edits and contribution to the development
of the twelve-inch single, revealed the immanent synergy that ran between the
dance floor, the DJ booth and the recording studio. Gibbons started to mix
between the breaks of disco and funk records around the same time DJ Kool
Herc began to test the technique in the Bronx, and the disco spinner was as
technically precise as Grandmaster Flash, even if the spinners directed their
deft handiwork to differing ends. It would make sense, then, for Gibbons to
be considered alongside these and other towering figures in the pantheon of
turntablism, but he died in virtual anonymity in 1994, and his groundbreaking
contribution to the intersecting arts of DJing and remixology has yet to
register beyond disco aficionados.1

Citation:
Lawrence, T. (2008) ‘Disco Madness: Walter Gibbons and the Legacy of Turntablism and Remixology’ Journal of Popular Music Studies, 20 (3) 276 - 329.