Cevin Fisher, the New Jersey DJ and producer who spent four decades filling dance floors with joyful, soulful, unstoppable house music, died peacefully on October 29 after a brief battle with cancer. He was 63, having celebrated his birthday just three days earlier. His family remembered him as an internationally acclaimed artist who leaves behind a loving wife, children, family and friends, along with a global following and an enduring legacy in house music.
Born Kevin Fisher on October 26, 1963, in East Orange, New Jersey, he grew up in the heart of one of the most important regions in dance music history. His talent showed itself early. At just 17 he landed a residency at Club Zanzibar in Newark, the legendary home of the Jersey sound, where he learned how to read a room and lift a crowd night after night.
From the DJ booth he moved into the studio, working as an engineer at Arthur Baker’s Shakedown Sound Studios in New York. There he helped craft remixes for some of the biggest names in music, including Chaka Khan’s “Love You All My Lifetime” and Quincy Jones’s “I’ll Be Good to You.” It was Danny Tenaglia who encouraged him to start making records of his own, and that advice op...