Enrico Tagliaferri

“DJs are born, not made”

THE BEGINNING OF THE CAREER: “I began my career in 1976. At the time, we used to play in basements. And we didn’t go in the evening, but in the afternoon. All you needed was a stereo system and the rest didn’t matter: they were moments of social gathering. The first money arrived in 1979; I was playing at Cantina Bakoo in Via dei Bardi on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.”

RADIO: I had the honor of working at RADIO ONE, which was the RADIO DJ of the era. I worked there until 2005. A MEMORY: “The first time I saw someone mixing was a Sunday afternoon at Bussola in Focette (Versilia). I saw Tom Savarese, the legendary DJ from Studio 54, touching the records and I couldn’t understand what he was doing. At the time, being a DJ didn’t mean being a professional; it meant having a great passion for music.”

MUSICAL TRACKS: 1 RECORD Let’s All Chant by Michael Zager Band; Disco Inferno, Saturday Night Fever; Esmeralda.

DANCES: Memorable was the Ali Shuffle movement, which repeated Muhammad Ali’s footwork when he boxed; and the Bump, though that predates those years.

BEING A DJ: “DJs are born, not made. At the core is a great desire to communicate. The most driven succeeded. When you started playing records, it wasn’t like now where you mix; back then, you had to be skilled at transitioning from one record to another using a similar instrument, a word… a similar phrase.”