Vol. 1, No. 1 of dee jay Magazine came out in April 1956.  Right off the bat, there is an editorial about how records should be kept to 2:20 or less.  Reasons are vague:  “If variety is the spice of life it is also the lifeblood of radio and television.  Records with a running time of three minutes or more do not contribute to the best in effective programming.  Although the length of time may be no criterion as to whether it will reach hit status, we think that 2:30 is the limit to which the disk jockey should be reasonably expected to publicize a records.”  The recommendation was that records to be played on the radio and jukeboxes should be subject to an industry-wide standard – records for “consumer” use could be whatever the “diskery” chose.  Read into that what you will.  Disk Jockeys will tell you how grateful they are when Marty Robbins released the four+ minute “El Paso” so they could go to the bathroom.

dee jay Magazine also gave record recommendations, in the categories of:

• Popular – Georgia Gibbs singing “rock ‘n roll,” Patti Page bowing to the r&b trend, and all the other usual suspects except maybe “Rock Island Line” by Lonnie Donnegan and “Long Tall Sally” by Pat Boone
• Rhythm and Blues – Lavern Baker, the Robins, Ray Charles, The Platters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Coasters, Little Walter, B.B. King
• Country and Western  – Elvis is on this chart, along with early Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Webb Pierce, Carl Smith, Marty Robbins and Kitty Wells
• Jazz.  This one’s funny.  A Hollywood DJ advises “If you don’t know music, stick to the top ten.”  “If you’re just starting a jazz show, don’t make the common mistake of going ‘Way Out’ with the wild stuff.  This is often caused by over enthusiasm and the desire to please your listeners….Balance your show with good commercial sides by Sinatra, the Hi-Los’s, Carmen McRae, etc.  Don’t play anything you don’t understand, and most important, I think, is some actual knowledge of music.  If you don’t have it, stick with the ‘Top Ten’ and don’t try to play jazz.”