After 25 years in the business you would expect legendary Funk Mafia DJ Froggy to be slowing things down a touch, but at the grand old age of forty-something he has got three weekly radio shows, a Friday-night residency at one of Londons top clubs, and we're also currently negotiating with major record companies for release of some of his classic mixes. Yes, it seems there is life in the old Frogg yet, and when you consider his infamous sound system is also about to take to the road once more, then it is apparent that this particular 25th anniversary should certainly have a silver lining. It was in the late 70's at the Regency Suite in Chadwell Heath near his Goodmayes, Essex home that Froggy would start to wow loyal crowds and fellow jocks like Pete Tong with a new-found technique of mixing. Yes, strange as it may sound these days, but back in those days, people neither had the equipment, nor ability to mix. It was only when Froggy and co. returned from a seminar in New York with the knowledge and the inspiration that mixing the different beats of two records over the top of each other really became possible in the UK. In the same three day trip Froggy visited the legendary Studio 54 and Paradise Garage clubs, plus a seminar which taught him how to mix on specially customised mixing units. It was an experience what would change his life forever.

He remembers, "It was simply amazing. On the one hand you had the mixing, which I had never seen before, and on the other there was this brand new club experience. The fact that the clubs didn' t get going until midnight combined with the sound systems being so awesome really blew my mind it was like a different culture". To come back with that experience plus tuition in how to mix really was something. So the legend was about to be born and he adds: "Back in England the mixing units did not have the capability of mixing two records together. 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 headphone at the same time".

Froggy went on to become the first jock in the country to take two sets of Technics 1200 decks on the road, using a mixer he had designed himself with a UK-based company called Matamp Super Nova. At that stage he had already toured the country with Dave Lee Travis, DJ-ing at his Radio One Roadshows and had gone on to present a regular 25 minute soul/disco session on the DLT show.

Meeting New York innovators like Larry Levan took Froggy to a new level. Indeed it was the sound systems at Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, Larry was resident at both, that would prove the forerunner for the now legendary Froggy Sound System. Once the Frogg had experienced a sound so crisp, yet so powerful, he was determined to try and recreate that king of production in the UK.

In 1980 and within months of his return from the Big Apple, the system was wowing more than 15,000 people at a soul all-dayer at Knebworth. Oasis were still at junior school but Froggy was already leaping about in true Gallagher style. He says: When I went to those clubs I just couldn't get over the sound and sheer extravagance. In Studio 54 in particular, the sound would get fatter and fatter as the night went on. That's how I tried to make mine operate, but no-one went home deaf though. It had a great woof to it, but nobody was ever bitten by its bark. The system would go on to be a regular attraction at the Caister Soul Weekenders, and has more recently been under the deft guidance of Froggy's co-pilot Paul P. It even entertained 2,000 hardcore fans when DJ Seduction played on it at a University gig in Colchester, Essex, two years ago. Due for another outing very soon and still available for hire, the system amazingly still boasts the same Technics 1200 decks from the Knebworth days and also the same Matamp Super Nova mixer that he helped design soon after his New York sabbatical.

In to the mid 80s and Froggy's radio edits through his work at the BBC with producer Dave Atky, would become equally as influential as he started attracting the attention of many a major artist. He went on to produce the radio edits of tracks like The Real Thing's- You to Me Are Everything, Changes- Change of Heart, Duran Duran's- A View To A Kill, Cameo's - Back and Forth, Dougie Fresh's - The Show and Booker Newbury III's - Love Town. By 1990, Froggy, who had enjoyed previous stints at Radio One with Peter Powell had his own show on London's Capital Radio. Nine years on and he has three weekend shows on his own backyard on east London's very own Active FM. Alongside his club residencies each Friday, Froggy is clearly still in business. As for Caister, Froggy will be there for another two stints this year at this legendary event. He enthuses: It's going to be brilliant, I'll have all my family (including my grown-up children) there and I hope all the old regulars too. It's been a great 25 years and I'm now really enjoying looking back on all the old tunes on my Active FM shows it's just great to be working on radio locally. I know people must look at me and think when's that old bastard going to chuck it all in, but I've got my gold watch and I wouldn't mind another one.

DJ Froggy By Marc Rowlands  -  The Guardian, Monday 14 April 2008

Innovative disc jockey, he helped to transform the British club scene

In 1978 the disc jockey DJ Froggy, who has died of a brain haemorrhage aged 58, installed his sound system at one of Britain's first soul "all-dayers", the National Soul Festival in Purley. A year later he was a DJ at the first Caister soul weekender in Great Yarmouth, alongside a group of DJs - including Robbie Vincent, Chris Hill, Greg Edwards and Jeff Young - which comprised the Soul Mafia. Froggy's innovative use of mixing decks and tape recorders, alongside his self-built sound system and the mixing consoles he designed himself, transformed the British club scene, acting as a catalyst, and a blueprint, for late 1980s rave culture. Froggy's style and theatricality heralded that explosion. In the early 1980s, prior to electro and hip-hop, he was the country's pre-eminent technical DJ.

In 1979 Froggy had visited Billboard magazine's New York disco convention, and there he picked up the theory behind New York's DJs' mixing techniques. He studied the practice at Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, watching DJ Larry Levan synchronising the rhythm of two records, cross-fading to play sections of their sounds simultaneously, while overlaying effects from a third turntable. Levan was presenting familiar music in a unique manner with pauses in the soundtrack introduced, often sparingly, and always at the DJ's instigation.

Back in Britain, Froggy modified his sound system, and mastered cross-fading. Within months the Soul Mafia, using that system, were playing to more than 15,000 people at Knebworth. His creation was still prospering as a hired-out concern in the mid-1980s rare-groove scene, and in the early rave movement.

In the 1980s Froggy developed his relationship with Radio 1, editing tracks for segments in Peter Powell's show. Later came record company work where Froggy provided extended disco mixes and shortened radio edits of tracks.

Born Steven Howlett, he was a Londoner from the East End, the son of Jean and Kenneth Howlett. His father was a mechanical engineer at Plessey's. His mother died when he was seven. Educated at Dane secondary school in Ilford, Essex, he was fascinated by sound equipment - and by the radiogram his father brought home from work.

Apprenticed as an engineer at 15, he took his City and Guilds qualification, and chaired the apprentice association. As such, and using a sound system he had built, he put on his own shows. Then in 1971 came a DJ residency at the Bird's Nest, in Romford, Essex. It was then that DJ Froggy was born.

Spotted by pop act manager George Brown in 1972, he found himself providing DJ accompaniment for bands, later to include such names as the Sweet, T. Rex and Slade, usually at large gig venues like Scunthorpe Baths. Encountering the DJ Emperor Rosko, who had become famous via 1960s pirate radio, Froggy was stunned by the quality of the American's sound system. So Froggy upgraded his own, and went in search of Yorkshire-based Mat Mathias, who had designed the Rosko mixing console. Later Froggy and Mathias co-designed their own consoles.

In 1974 the then Radio 1 disc jockey Dave Lee Travis suggested a collaboration. From 1974 to 1978 their act, which Travis describes as verging on cabaret, toured throughout Britain. When Froggy quit, it was to focus on soul, disco and jazz-funk. He accepted many club dates in the south of England and began a weekly residency at the Royalty, in Southgate, north London, from late 1978. Then came Purley and the National Soul Festival.

Froggy lived in the Ilford area for most of his life. Married three times, he is survived by two daughters and a son.

· DJ Froggy (Steven Howlett), club DJ, born November 8 1949; died March 28 2008, RIP