O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? That who we call Smooth.
By any other name would the music mix sound as sweet? -Willy Shakes
1983. I don’t recall how I got the job at ‘The Money’, the go-to college bar in Rock Hill. As a high school student and being under age, I probably shouldn’t have.
I suspect it had to do with the Manager at the club, Joe Mark, being cousin to my best friend, Ladd. I do remember that when I started DJing at the club, I was good at BPM tracking and could roll one song to the next, like you would do on radio at the time. Beat-mixing on the other hand, I knew in theory but had no experience. I went into the club hours before it would open and practice mixing, memorizing sections of songs, marking BPM and getting use to working with headphones and the booth monitor. Still, I had some epically bad train wrecks of a mix. When things went well, no one noticed. When they didn’t, everyone noticed.
One night after closing, I was sitting at the end of the bar while the staff and bartenders are cleaning and stocking. Bubba Taylor (club owner) walks out of the office and over to the bar. “DJ Smooth” he shouted as he approached. For some reason and unknown to anyone else, he thought I was related to the ‘Smooth Brothers Construction’ guys that were building the new deck for the club. What he wasn’t aware of was the moment earlier in the evening when I stoped the wrong turntable. Everyone else was aware of that. So when he called out DJ Smooth, everyone else thought he was just giving me a hard time. Over the next couple weeks he continued to call me DJ Smooth. Occasionally Joe Mark would say “He’s got it under control, smooth control”. One evening at closing Taylor had called me Smooth again and one of the bartenders ask “Why do you keep calling him that?” Taylor looked very confused at the question. With absolute certainly he said that it was my name and that Im one of the Smooth Brothers. Now, everyone else looked confused. They look at me. I just shake my head “Clark”. Back to Taylor, “Well shit. I thought he was a Smooth Brother” I was still unsure what was going on but everyone else was cracking up the rest of the night. The next evening when I got to the club all the staff were now calling me DJ Smooth. I was stuck with it. Joe Mark kept with Smooth Control. Ladd and my friends in school broke it down to just Smooth.
