River City Shag Club
Down by the Sound
Blog
SOS Fall 2009
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The weather was perfect. Old friends reunited and made new friends....
checkout out www.shagtour.com. you will recognize a few faces.
smoothies
The Breeze Band at Potato Festival Eliz City
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The Breeze Band has an amazing sound that made them the perfect entertainment for the Lancaster Shag Clubs community fundraiser for Camp Kemo. With their help, we were able to raise $3000 to send children with cancer to camp for a week. The dance floor was never empty with the Breeze on stage. They are my top choice!....Renee Baker-Chairman
I just want to thank you for the marvelous performance you gave at
Brice/Kyleen Burgess wedding on Sept 24th.
I am the mother of the groom . The atmosphere you created within the reception has given each person attending, a day to well remember.
We will be keeping in touch ... Once again, thank you so much....Billie Simkins
The Breeze is a great group of guys. They are not only talented but extremely personable. Each time they perform for us they essentially become part of our group and I would recommend them to anyone looking for great entertainment....
Debbie Olson-Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Breeze Band.....Just wanted to thank you all for such a memorable experience. You all made our wedding reception! We are still talking about what a blast we had dancing and singing and watching everyone else do the same.... Thanks again, Pat & Anna Lucke
Shan and I (and everyone else) had a blast. I could not have asked for a better band for our reception. The first dance was absolutely amazing. We hope to see you guys again real soon. I really can't thank you enough. Please say thanks to everyone else in the band for us. We will see you soon.... David & Shannon
Dear Breeze Band, Thank you for playing at our wedding. We will always remember our special day and the wonderful music! .....Scott and Victoria Respess
Guess who got the key to the city.........CW....
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Little Washington, Craig?s hometown, honored him last Saturday night at the Annual Washington Festival in front of 8000 plus proud spectators with a key to the city.
His mother, Betty, his wife Debbie of 24 years, and his 2 children, Craig Michael and Carly,
watched Craig receive the award with tears in their eyes and pride in their hearts.
Craig has performed at the Washington Festival for over 15 years.
This is truly a moment he will never forget.
As Craig said ? ?This is by far the BEST award I have ever received, and certainly, the one that means the most. I love you Little Washington?.
Craig was born and raised in Washington, and has dreams of one day coming home to retire on the river that he has loved so much since a boy.
compliments of cwb.....
Phil Sawyer Honored ......South Carolina
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l Phil Sawyer did not just shag his way to a lifetime achievement award. His vision, advocacy, leadership, and even administrative skills had as much to do with the signal honor as tripping the light fantastic on a hardwood floor to a Jackie Wilson or Ella Fitzgerald tune.
Sawyer, 77, was honored for a lifetime of support and promotion of dance, especially the Carolina shag during a shaggers? winter workshop.
More than 250 officers of local and regional shag clubs from throughout the southeast, from Washington, DC, to Birmingham, AL, met in Columbia to discuss the business of keeping their clubs fluid.
Later in the weekend, dancers filling two ballrooms perpetuated the smooth moves that in 1984 made the shag SC?s state dance.
Sawyer was president of the Columbia Shag Club during the time the Society of Stranders (SOS) had dipped into danger of extinction. The local shag club was one of the five original founding clubs of the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs (ACSC).
Under Sawyer?s leadership, SOS pivoted into the black and has been on a roll ever since. Membership in SOS is the ticket to take the floor during two seasonal events that for more than two decades have drawn shaggers to the Carolina coast. Today SOS has a membership of approximately 18,000 Carolina Shag lovers worldwide, although most dancers are located primarily in the Southeast.
Spring Safari, considered a baby?boomers? Spring Break, attracts as many as 15,000 dancers to the North Myrtle Beach area for a long weekend in March. Fall Migration brings in about the same number, turning participating shag halls, decks, or boardwalks into tourist destinations.
Sawyer?s honor carries with it the establishment of the Phil Sawyer Award, an annual cash award intended as a partial scholarship for a dance major in USC?s Department of Theatre and Dance.
The award was established by two gifts to the USC Endowment, a $5,000 gift from ACSC and $20,000 from the SOS Charitable Foundation. Annual income will be used to fund the award. The principle will remain to grow the endowed fund. When the principle reaches $100,000, the award will become a named scholarship in perpetuity.
At the award ceremony, enthusiastic suggestions were made regarding participating shag clubs? annual supplements to the fund. Bo Bryan, author of the book SHAG, contributed one book for each shag club to be signed by that club?s members then auctioned on e-Bay. Proceeds will go to the fund.
Joining Sawyer, his wife Chick and their family, was special guest SC Rep. John ?Bubber? Snow. The Hemmingway lawmaker championed the Shag as SC?s State Dance more than two decades ago. In his remarks Snow reminisced about college days he and Sawyer shared when the two friends were students at USC.
Also in attendance were Christina Myers of the USC Educational Foundation, who answered questions about the award?s funding procedures, and Susan Anderson, artistic director of the USC Dance Company, and part of USC?s Department of Theatre and Dance.
Editor?s Note: Richard Durlach is president of the Board of Dance of the USC Dance Company.
Article from Columbia Star.
june newletter
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Classic Beach Music and its History
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Artists and groups that were important to the formative years of this genre include: Artie Shaw, Wynonie Harris, Jimmy Cavallo and The House Rockers, Ruth Brown, Little Willie John, Earl Bostic, The Drifters, Wilbert Harrison, Clyde McPhatter, Billy Ward and The Dominos, Hank Ballard, Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs, The Tams, The 5 Royales, The Coasters, Fats Domino, Jimmy McCracklin, Solomon Burke, Sam Cooke, The Platters, The Four Tops, Louis Prima, Arthur Alexander, Stick McGee, Jackie Brenston, Willbert Harrison, Big Joe Turner, Bruce Channel, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Dinah Washington, Billy Stewart, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, The O'Jays, The Spinners, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, The Checkers, The Clovers, Barbara Lewis, Don Covay, Jimmy Ricks and The Ravens, Mary Wells, Garnett Mimms and The Enchanters, Ben E. King, Major Lance, Willie Tee and Ernie K-Doe.
While some of the "beach hits" by these artists appeared on the R&B and rock and roll charts nationally, a great many of them were "b-sides" -- or even more obscure recordings that never charted at all. With this penchant for obscure R&B, especially from the sixties, beach music has much in common with the northern soul phenomenon in the UK. Transition and Renewal
The "Beach Bands"
Another wave of artists, known today as the "beach bands" came into prominence in the mid sixties to early seventies, heavily influenced by the sound of Motown and the other prominent R&B labels of the day such as Atlantic Records, Stax, etc.. These included The Tassels, Gene Barbour and the Cavaliers, The Men of Distinction (Original), The In-Men, Ltd., The Attractions,The Embers, The Monzas, The Sardams, The Catalinas and the nationally-charting groups The Pieces of Eight (Original), The Swinging Medallions, The Okaysions, and Bill Deal and the Rhondells. Many of these bands got their start backing the famous R&B/soul artists who played at The Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, The Coachman and Four in Bennettsville SC, The Cellar in Charlotte NC, The Embers Club in Raleigh, NC, Rogues Gallery and Peppermint Beach Club in Virginia Beach, VA and other such venues.
This wave of primarily white R&B artists was part of a strong but nationally short-lived musical trend known as "blue-eyed soul" which also produced The Rascals, The Box Tops, John Fred, Rare Earth, Leon Russell, Johnny Rivers, Bonnie Bramlett, Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, and The Righteous Brothers.
The Revival Years
In the '80s, after decades of waning popularity, Beach music enjoyed a major revival in the Carolinas, thanks largely to the formation of a loose-knit organization known as The Society of Stranders (SOS). Originally intended as a relatively small social gathering of shag enthusiasts, "beach diggers" and former lifeguards meeting yearly in the Ocean Drive section of North Myrtle Beach, S.O.S. quickly grew to become a major Spring event.
At around the same time, a fanzine called "It Will Stand" (from the rock'n'roll/R&B anthem of that name by The Showmen) began to delve deeper into the history of beach music than any publication before or since. Concurrent with the new enthusiasm for the shag, and an increased emphasis on the roots of the music came a period of revival for many of the beach bands that had come to prominence in the sixties. In addition to these groups, younger artists began to emerge, either as members of established groups, or with groups of their own. Dedicated beach music charts began to appear, tracking the musical tastes of shaggers and other aficionados of the genre. The number of regional radio stations playing beach music began to increase substantially.
In 1981, Virginia entrepreneur John Aragona sponsored the first Beach Music Awards show at the Convention Center in Myrtle Beach. He would sponsor two more shows of this type over the next several years, setting the stage for the CAMMY Awards show, first held at Salisbury, NC in 1995. The shows soon moved to Charlotte and then to Myrtle Beach, where they are still an eagerly-anticipated and well-attended annual event under their new name, The Carolina Beach Music Awards (CBMA).
The Current Regional "Beach & Shag" Scene
[edit] Artists Of Note
The best of beach music from the early decades, from both national and regional artists, is known today as "classic beach". However, there is more to beach music than just the "oldies". New recordings in this style are being produced regularly as part of the regional music industry in the Southeastern US.
Current regional artists and groups who appear on the Beach and Shag music charts include Bill Pinkney and The Original Drifters, General Johnson and The Chairmen of the Board, the Craig Woolard Band, The Coastline Band, The Embers, Billy Scott, The Poor SoulsThe Carousels with Tony Baker, The Attractions Band, Donny and Susan Trexler, Lia and The Wave, J.D. Cash, Band of Oz,, The Fantastic Shakers, The Memphis All-Stars, Heart and Soul, The Rickey Godfrey Band,The Coppertones, and Sea Cruz. While the terms "beach music" and "Carolina beach music" are still used, the increasing popularity of the shag has led to it sometimes being identified as "shag music". Many web sites have lately begun to refer to this music as "beach & shag".
This is the music being played by shag deejays in dance clubs, as well as on the "Beach and Oldies" radio stations that exist primarily in the Carolinas. Also charting regionally are such well-known national and international artists as Van Morrison, Ray Charles, Huey Lewis, T. Graham Brown, Simply Red, Wilson Pickett, Hall and Oates, Al Green and Delbert McClinton. In recent years, national artists of note -- such as O.C. Smith, Alabama, Jimmy Buffett, Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges, D.K. Davis, and the Carolina's own Nappy Brown and Roy Roberts -- have recorded music specifically aimed at this market.
[edit] Impact On Popular Culture
Though primarily confined to a small regional fan base, in its early days what is now known as Carolina beach music was instrumental in bringing about wider acceptance of R&B music among the white population nationwide. Thus is was a contributory factor in both the birth of rock and roll and the later development of soul music as a sub-genre of R&B.
In the years since its beginning, while the older styles of R&B have faded from popularity nationally, the Carolina shag has gained wide popularity in swing dance circles around the US. This has not generally led to increased appreciation for the music of the beach bands, however. Many of these new shag dance aficionados prefer the "R&B oldies" and/or shagging to currently popular tunes that happen to have the required beat. As more networking is being done on the Internet among shag deejays and beach music fans nationwide, however, there is a growing acceptance of the regional bands by the "new shaggers".
In a related trend, since the year 2000 there has been a steady increase in the popularity of Southern Soul, led by such R&B labels as Ecko and Malako. These labels feature both original and new artists of "the old school", and sometimes turn out recordings aimed specifically at the beach/shag market. An example of this is "In A Beach Music Mood" by Rick Lawson. In addition, at least one dedicated Beach act, General Johnson and the Chairmen of The Board, has begun to chart both nationally and internationally with their brand of Southern Soul -- sometimes with songs that are not aimed more at the beach and shag market, such as "Three Women".
Jimmy Buffett cites beach music as a major influence. His CD "Beach House On The Moon" was intended as an homage to the genre. Though it featured The Tams, and for a while they toured with him as vocalists, the CD did not yield any tunes that were big hits with beach music fans. However, it may have been influential in popular country music. Since that release, there have been others by artists associated with Buffett that have had that "perfect shag beat" and a beach music feel to them. Some have become hits with shaggers, including "Drift Away" and "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker, "Some Beach" by Blake Shelton and "When The Sun Goes Down" by Kenny Chesney. Just as was the case with "Dancing, Shagging On The Boulevard" by Alabama in the nineties, these country-flavored songs went over well on the dance floor regionally but did not please the more R&B oriented beach music fans. They did, however, impact the growing national shag dance scene to some degree.
In addition to these country and pop connections for the music, the pure R&B aspects of it have led to a kind of cultural cross-fertilization of beach and shag music with the northern soul scene in the UK and elsewhere. This has been due in large part to communication between deejays of the respective genres on the Internet. 'Fessa John Hook's Endless Summer Network, streamed on the Internet, has a weekly program featuring noted northern soul deejay Kev Roberts, and there are plans for its programming to also be carried on satellite radio in Europe.
Carolina beach music was featured on the sound track of Shag, a 1989 film starring Bridget Fonda and Phoebe Cates, filmed in part at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion and other Grand Strand locations. Though not a wholly accurate portrayal, it is an agreeable and entertaining "coming of age" movie, with a good soundtrack and some excellent shagging. Not widely popular in its initial release, Shag has gone on to become something of a cult film. No doubt it has helped to foster and maintain some interest beyond the Carolinas for beach and shag music.
In what is undoubtedly the most internationally famous example of its influence, Beach Music by South Carolina writer Pat Conroy takes its title from this regional genre of music. The novel's protagonist, Jack McCall, seeks to get his daughter more in touch with her Southern roots. He does this by introducing her to the shag and to classic beach music. He describes The Drifters' immortal song, "Save the Last Dance For Me" in this way:
"This is your Mama's and my favorite song. We fell in love dancing to it."
Then: "Carolina beach music," her uncle Dupree tells her, "is the holiest sound on earth."
External links
It's the Shag and the Holiday Band by Chris Tones
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The infinite shag
Landlocked and in penny loafers, shag enthusiasts keep the beat moving
BY CHRIS TOENES
  Steve Rogers, a shag enthusiast, kicks up his heels to The Holiday Band in Burlington. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
But the woman's look says it all: Are the people inside really twirling each other around and shuffling their feet to an old Temptations cover? In a sports bar? In Chapel Hill?
She doesn't realize that, inside, there's a beach music show under way in the Southern Part of Heaven known more for an arms-crossed, hipster non-dance crowd than a full-fledged jitterbug offshoot. She's peeking into the world of Carolina Shag, an unofficial collective of 50 shag clubs statewide. The music and dance tradition is especially vital here in the Piedmont, and several of its most loyal proponents are here, dancing away on a Tuesday night. They're not only moving their feet and grinning wide, but they're also helping to keep this uniquely Carolina tradition alive.
The people inside constitute a piece of an intricate lattice of word-of-mouth promotion that keeps shag going in the North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, the three core states of the shag world. As the rest of the country's shag admirers look on in envy, North Carolina shaggers revel in their brother- (and sister-) hood here. It even has its own day. Shag enthusiast and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall started the Beach Music Day two years ago, hosting a giant concert celebration in downtown Raleigh. The pride can be sported, too, with a Shag Tag license plate--an "I'd rather be shagging" inscription atop a pair of penny loafers. For a dance craze and musical culture that started before television kicked in, Carolina Shag is doing very well, thank you.
 Instructor June Arthurs and shagger Steve Rogers share a laugh after class at Shorty's in Chapel Hill. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
The current generation of shaggers has either enjoyed the music all their lives and grew up doing the dance, or they have entered over time through R&B-infused beach music. The shag started in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the late '40s, when race records--essentially, black R&B and swing--were first being played on the radio to the delight of white teenagers and the bewilderment of their parents. Some landmarks of North Myrtle's seminal Ocean Drive remain, like Fat Harold's and Ducks, together a veritable mecca for shag clubs across the country that make pilgrimages there for the annual Society of Stranders (SOS) party.
In Fat Harold's front room, photos of flashy shaggers of the past cover the walls like shingles, insulating the room with tiles of warm faces, an evolving, highly populated memory lane. Circular emblems for shag clubs, the regional cells of shag culture that host events for dancers in small towns, line the rooms. Landlocked locales like North Wilkesboro, Burlington and Monroe all get their spot. Scoreboard Grill in Pittsboro, a long-standing Piedmont club, lays claim to one of the more prominent emblems, just above the Harold's entrance.
 The Holiday Band doesn't shy away from interacting with the patrons, or each other, at 3 Thirty 3 Sports Bar in Burlington. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
But anyone who knows Rogers very well knows he is a shagger, first and foremost. He attends shows and dance lessons about every week, a top-notch enthusiast obsessed with things like new dance steps or collections of regional beach band albums. He's a sturdy man, too, with frosty hair styled just so. But his demeanor--that of a genteel, good time kind of guy who loves to dance more than anything in the world--is emblematic of the beach music vibe.
The bug first bit Rogers when he was a kid in Alamance County. When he thinks about nights in the years after AM radio started reaching out to a younger audience by playing rhythm and blues, his eyes glow like a lamp's mantle, stumbling over words as they spill happily from his mouth. His gestures become dramatic, like an evangelist imparting a parable: "You would go to bed with your transistor radio. You'd put it on your pillow, up against your ear, listening. When you woke up, your batteries were dead."
These stories abound among devout shaggers, rites of passage to a genuine love of the dance and its lifestyle. It is a code that is gradually learned. Rogers continued learning with his teen-age band, The Night Riders, who released a full-length record in 1967 on Justice Records, Introducing ... The Night Riders, now a collectible to garage rock record fiends. The band was a holdout for straight soul and beach-sounding bands. For them, the British Invasion might as well have never happened. They even played some country to widen their audience. Rogers cracks a grin about the concessions made by his high school troupe just to play: "To keep our parents happy, we weren't allowed to play anywhere that served alcohol," he says.
On the cover of their record, the Night Riders are packed into a yacht-sized convertible in suits, ties and short hair, as apple-pie American as doo-wop groups and the squeaky clean Beach Boys from the left coast. After all, beach music and shag survive today on the same undercurrent of conservative musical tastes, a catholic devotion to a particular slice of party music. The comfort zone that the music--from the O'Kaysions' "Girl Watcher" to Chairmen of the Board's classic "(Give Me) Just a Little More Time"--allows its fans nostalgia for the easy-going life of the '50s and the '60s pinnacle of R&B. As R&B begat saltier tastes like hard rock, rap and metal, the shaggers became more polarized towards their own sound, now broadly dubbed beach music.
Likewise, the Night Riders played the popular hits of their time, the type written by white kids enamored of black R&B and early rock 'n' roll artists--"Good Lovin'," "Louie Louie," "Little Latin Lupe Lu." One of their favorites, "Double Shot (of My Baby's Love)" by the Swingin' Medallions, was a bridge between the Pacific Northwest frat-rock scene and the Southern beach music crowd. Rogers remembers shagging to it plenty himself.
But his progression to beach-music fanatic is a reflection of the way close-knit friends keep the scene alive in North Carolina, and how it must cross barriers of age and geography to survive. Shag supporters, band members and radio jocks are a do-it-yourself set, much like the punks on the other side of the spectrum, creating record covers on the fly, booking gigs, and getting people to show up by simply spreading the word, all outside the realm of viral marketing or MP3 blogging. Beach music even has its own award, the Cammy, and a movement to petition for a Grammy is under way. Sometimes the crowds come in droves, sometimes hardly at all. After all, Rogers says, audiences in this state are spoiled. Access to beach music and shagging is just too easy.
 The Holiday Band doesn't shy away from interacting with the patrons, or each other, at 3 Thirty 3 Sports Bar in Burlington. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
The band works the crowd by walking the floor, chatting them up between numbers. There is an intimacy between band and audience. When an errant dancer needs a partner, Mike Neese, a Holiday Band singer, takes advantage of his cordless microphone and takes her for a dance. Members of the Piedmont's shag stronghold are here, from a well-regarded dance instructor to Cathy Cash, who co-owns both Scoreboard and Shorty's with her husband, Shorty himself.
In this largely first-name-basis community, it would be easy to be afraid of being an interloper in a room of people so familiar with each other and so into the dance they've gathered to do. Even the Shorty's bartender recognizes most of the dancers.
Underground scenes tend towards exclusivity by their nature, and the shag community certainly isn't a staple of the mainstream. This clique is hugely inclusive, though, welcoming and eager to add to their ranks if someone shows genuine interest in the dance. Sure, some may be on a first-name basis, as these folks cherish each other's company, but it's also what's absent that defines the community for them--no negative vibes, no angst, no overbearing volumes. For those reasons, the good vibrations of the shag continue to draw a new crowd. Tonight, a younger Latino man in jeans and a collared shirt works on steps with a partner on the duct-taped floor near some dart boards. The 60-plus-year-old dance still appeals to both youthful and diverse audiences.
After all, the dance's easy-going atmosphere fosters friendship and camaraderie. Rogers recounts dozens of connections he has among fellows shaggers, from his old high school band's days up to the people he's dancing with tonight. For many of them, learning shag was part of becoming an adult, a chance to meet people in the same Southern situation.
"Parents pass it on, too, because they take the kids with them," says DJ Mike Lewis, a jolly man often seen in large colorful glasses and a hat, "because they didn't want to get a babysitter."
"Once the bug bites ya..," June Arthurs says of shag's no-cure infectiousness. Arthurs is co-instructor of shag lessons at both Shorty's and its sister club in Pittsboro, Scoreboard Grill. She remembers her mother teaching lessons at an Arthur Murray school, a national dance instruction company, and learning "in her Dad's arms." She's a lithe dancer, too, a petite woman with a big grin and an instant charm. Her dexterous footwork and weight-shifting turns led her to the top 10 at the Shag Grand Nationals competition this year. She even danced with one of the so-called original "bad boys" of shag. Now in their 60s, that cast of beach music rebels still gets respect. "They were the kind that would roll their cigarettes up in their sleeve back then," she remembers.
Arthurs loves shag, and she works to make it thrive. But she can't do it alone. The people at lessons like this help: Rogers goes to her lessons in Pittsboro weekly and boasts of her expert work to fellow dancers. When those new recruits don't show at her lessons, he jokes that he'll be nagging them soon.
Two of Arthurs' current regulars, Cathy and Jim Shuping of Durham, only started learning in November, but she's already teaching them complex steps like the wobbly-kneed "Elvis." They are a portion of the required group shag has had to reach to live beyond its core of self-described old schoolers. Under Arthurs' tutelage, that's possible: After a few pointers from her and co-instructor Larry Patterson, the basic--the eight-step backbone of the shag--becomes a breeze for the neophyte.
Even veterans bemoan Arthurs' and Patterson's dance floor ease; seated nearby, Rogers enviously observed Patterson's loose, sweeping steps, the sign of a great shagger, "See, look how limber Larry is." Cathy explains it giddily: "When you dream at night about new steps, you know you've got the fever." That attitude keeps this dance alive.
 Student Kathy Shuping and instructor Lenn Daman try out a new move as June Arthurs and Jim Shuping look on. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
Mike Taylor has seen different shades of the shag scene over the years, including a monumental show when The Holiday Band played a Lincoln Center concert and 500 attendees paid to take shag lessons. But he says it always comes back to one thing: "Shaggers like dead black harmonica-player bands." Places like Loafers, which Rogers calls a "customer-friendly place with a good dance floor" with more of an over-35 crowd, even leans more towards bluesy bands and harmonica-playing bands, a typical variation on the beach band scene.
In fact, it can be argued that there are no "beach music bands" because most party bands don't exclusively play beach music. If shag can be said to have a defining characteristic, it's a rhythmic range just above and below 120 beats per minute. The drummer must drop into that rhythmic pocket and stay there for the maximum "shagability," a common element of groups playing this music. But bands like Taylor's find a sense of self-expression, too, plying the supple three-chord boogie, he says. "We know we're not playing Beethoven or Mozart. But it's a great way for a musician to keep doing what he loves, playing music that's stood a half a century."
During that period, beach music bands in Carolina have thrived playing private functions, especially college parties. No one knows this territory like Norman "General" Johnson and his Chairmen of the Board. Even now, they play parties booked by student groups, second-generation shaggers whose parents might have danced to the Chairmen on the same floor. Tradition and familiarity rule the night here.
"We perform with a youthfulness and try to cover subject matter that they enjoy," Johnson says. Johnson found success in this region accidentally after being a sought-after songwriter in the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit factory. He figured that they were already writing what people in the Carolinas considered beach music. He set up shop here, and now crowds outside of the region constantly request one of the group's best-known songs, "Carolina Girl."
Mike Taylor recalls an attractive Carolina girl approaching a then-member of The Holiday Band at one of those UNC-Chapel Hill gigs, asking "Didn't you play with Band of Oz?" As he beamed at the recognition, she followed with the deflating "My mom loves y'all!" Though this scenario echoes the distance of age, she was still there, dancing away at their show.
The Longbranch, a club in Raleigh which many folks assume caters exclusively to country and western tastes, brings in some of the heaviest hitters in beach music at least twice a month. Big crowds turn out. The crowds get especially young if the band recentlty performed at nearby N.C. State. Sometimes the age mixture of the crowd just depends on the band. "Band of Oz draws a college following because of the band's younger members," says Rogers, a veritable guidebook to the state's shag spots. "Craig Woolard Band and Embers both get younger folks, too."
Darren Hunnicutt, who spins as DJ One Duran, plays drum and bass and hip-hop for pleasure at clubs including Hell and Tallulas, but has worked the college circuit, too. "Plenty of frat boys and their ladies find it to be about the only music in their comfort zone for dancing. We're talking about the blue blazer, khakis-and loafers-with-optional-bow tie set here, as well as the dudes who one minute request Chamillionaire [a Houston hip-hop group] and the next are shagging with the best of 'em. But that's why they enjoy it, because they know how to dance to this, but not to Nelly."
Radio keeps the music in shaggers' homes even now, via live and syndicated shows presented by long-time DJs like WBAG 1150 AM's Gailes Stuckey and WPCM 920 AM's Ed Weiss, better known as "Charlie Brown." In 1959, Weiss moved to Chapel Hill from Virginia, when he says he was "watching guys dancing with doorknobs," learning their steps. "Young people now pick it up," he says. "At Loafers in Raleigh, when they bring some old R&B guy like Floyd Dixon in, the audience is mixed between salt-and-peppered and college kids. Those kids can't know who he is, but there they are."
In 1980, Chapel Hill DJ Mike Lewis dropped the needle on the biggest inroad to the beach music scene when he played "Mess O' Blues" by country artist Delbert McClinton at a gig. Country fans who did not embrace black R&B found a way in through McClinton. June Arthurs said her husband, John, started shagging because of this leap, too. Lewis says it had become "anything I could make fit the dance. I used to put my thumb on the record to slow it down."
Crossover is crucial, too: General Johnson has collaborated with several artists of different stripes over the years. He worked with the less-than-politically correct David Allan Coe and, sparked by a meeting at a songwriter's convention at the Bottom Line in New York, with the late punk icon Joey Ramone. Ramone was a notoriously huge fan of early American R&B and the Phil Spector, Brill-building sound.
"His mother was there, and gave me a big bear hug. That was the first song that he had performed that, at her age, she could really understand," says Johnson, who recorded a mesh of his "On the Beach" and the Ramones' "Rockaway Beach" with Joey. "We became big good friends."
Re-imagined for an audience that grew up with indie pop and groups indebted to The Ramones, beach music and the shag could catch on in another revival like Western swing dancing did years ago, where 20- and 30-somethings set aside a night for shag lessons instead of trivia or karaoke. The secrets of the loafers will be passed on, within the inner sanctum of shag here in the Carolinas, regardless of popularity. And shaggers in the Piedmont do have their fountain of energy: Regardless of their age or creed, shaggers and their favorite bands eventually all end up at the beach.
 The Holiday Band gets the crowd on the floor at 3 Thirty 3 Sports Bar in Burlington. Photo by Lissa Gotwals |
Their dance floor is a stretched flat of plywood nestled in sand. The most casual dancers--those who might even bend their knees (what Mike Lewis jokingly calls the "Duke Dip," not the shag)--sing along. Tom Brooks, a retiree here from Atlanta, is in the state just for the festival. "Thing is," he says, "when you get down below the Carolinas where we are, there's nothing in terms of seeing this music live."
Brooks pops up later that day at the Cape Fear Shag Club, his skin now a deep butterscotch. His wife pulled him to see the nearby professional dance contest. He had rather been at the live Coastline Band show down the street. The pressure cooker of the professional round got to him: "I mean, people should be able to dance how they feel, and not be nervous. But here I am being nervous among all these hardcore shaggers."
It was easy to see why. Everyone was circling the dance floor, crowned by a single mirrored ball. Dancers with numbers pinned to their backs slid gracefully across the floor. Such dance contests are a nexus for beach music bands and shaggers, a collection of like-minded enthusiasts together at last. It keeps them going.
It keeps people like Steve Rogers going, too, he admits. He talks of increasing the fold back home by encouraging new dancers, and he already looks forward to the next SOS, where close to 15,000 shag zealots will assemble in North Myrtle.: "I always say, 'You get 50, and you try to feel your youth again.'"
Thanks to people like Rogers, shag is finding continued youth, too, right here near its cradle.
| The dates and the dance: An introduction to shag
"The Shag took off in the '40s when Southerners went North and tried the Northern dances, the Jitterbug and Big Apple, at places like the Savoy in New York. Few could do it, so they brought the music back home with them and slowed down the dance. During this time, that kind of black music couldn't even be played on the radio here in North Carolina."--DJ Mike Lewis Although it is sometimes disputed, most enthusiasts believe the shag emerged from North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Through radio exposure in its infancy, and the rise of "beach bands" in subsequent years, shag and beach music spread quickly from the East Coast. Here are some notable dates for Carolina Shag culture, as well as distinguishing features of the original Carolina style:
Terms to move
Dance to the Web
Dance to the club
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Heeey Baby! A Christmas Wish
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Heeey, baby!
Book chronicles long history of beach music
By Steve Palisin
The Sun News
Cammy awards honor beach music groups
"Ask anyone who knows what beach music is," said Greg Haynes, "and the first
thing that pours out of their mouth is Myrtle Beach."
The author of "The Heeey Baby Days of Beach Music - Stories and Remembrances
of a Southern Music Genre" sees beach music as "pretty much synonymous with
Myrtle Beach," where all the famous bands would perform in the 1960s and
70s.
He called the Beach Club, in North Myrtle Beach, "the centroid" for many
bands featured in the book, which will cover maybe a third or maybe half of
a coffee table.
Haynes shared the credit for this bible of beach music.
"I had no idea that this project would grow to such enormity," he said by
phone from Atlanta.
All 12 pounds of his anthology, printed last month by Rare Reads Publishing,
account for five years of compilation, research and connecting with many
musicians from coast to coast.
The results play out in 552 tabloid-size pages and about 800 photos and
images.
"It's not the effort of one person," Haynes said, calling the four pages of
acknowledgments the most important section.
"It's the effort of an army, the musicians who wanted this to happen. They
wanted to be part of it. ... It's not my book; it's our book."
"Heeey Baby Days" sorts out sounds from places such as Florida, Louisiana,
Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and the Palmetto State.
Haynes initially envisioned "Heeey Baby Days" as a means to remember his
three to four years as a band promoter, before he built his career as an
industrial real estate broker the past three decades.
The passion found among so many musicians engulfed him like a high tide.
"It was hard to find a stopping point," he said. "It was very easy to get
them to talk about this era. They really still love it. ... It's not about
the money; it's the love of the music."
Beach music had been referred to as soul music or rhythm and blues, and then
the turn of the 1970s brought a change in terminology.
Speaking for baby boomers, Haynes said beach music made up their soundtrack
in college, "and they like to listen to it today." It's a throwback to a
musical chapter and time of more simplicity and innocence.
"The music went from 'Baby, I Need Your Loving' to 'War (What's It Good
For?)'" Haynes said. referring to respective Motown hits by the Four Tops
and Edwin Starr. "It sums up a lot of that era."
When Haynes was digging for details for "Heeey Baby Days," no information
was readily available on, for example, Bob Collins & the Fabulous Five.
Haynes hooked up with Donny Trexler, the group's guitarist, who sang lead on
"If I Didn't Have a Dime," recorded in 1966, and wrote "Inventory on
Heartaches" (1968). Trexler also contributed a passage for the book.
Trexler, of Little River, said Haynes' book provides "a wonderful thing for
beach music," a lifestyle he continues with "six or seven concerts a week."
He remembered his love and professional debut with soul music in 1958, the
year soul group Hank Ballard & the Midnighters released "The Twist" as a
45-rpm B-side, later covered in 1960 for the pop masses by Andrews-area
native Chubby Checker.
Little River resident Gary Brown lists several bands on his resume as a
singer.
He said he was tickled by his inclusion in "Heeey Baby Days."
"Some of the groups in there I had forgotten about," he said. "The book
brings back memories."
Brown recalls seeing many of the beach bands mentioned at one time or
another, since he carried his chops into the business in the mid-1960s.
For "all those groups," according to Haynes, "you would find no vacancies on
their schedules on Friday and Saturday nights."
Marion Carter, co-founder of Ripete Records in Elliott, near Sumter, was one
of three senior contributors to Haynes' book.
"It's the history and story of American beach music," Carter said, breaking
down stories behind the groove for beach, soul and Southern rock - "three
distinct styles of music."
He cited how Duane and Gregg Allman, in their early acts, had covered
records by Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, both of whom had Caucasian bands
for recording, travel or both.
Haynes said bands hired for weddings pepper their playlist, blending such
songs with more contemporary fare, evidence of many younger people's
rediscovery of beach boogie, "They listen to the music," he said, "and it
passes all generations."
Contact STEVE PALISIN
at 444-1764 or spalisin@thesunnews.com.
Willie C.
See the Cafe at:
http://www.BeachMusicCafe.com
Listen to the Cafe at:
http://www.live365.com/stations/williecs
Shop at the Cafe Company Store:
http://www.cafepress.com/williecs
(843)455-6689
Get it here http://www.heybabydays.com
"The Heeey Baby Days of Beach Music -- Stories and Remembrances of a Southern Music Genre," by Greg Haynes ($59.95, Rare Reads Publishing, 2006), is available from:
Barnes & Noble, Seaboard Commons, Myrtle Beach; 444-4046. www.barnesandnoble.com [http://www.barnesandnoble.com].
Judy's House of Oldies, 300 Main St., North Myrtle Beach; 249-8649. www.judyshouse ofoldies.com.
Gary Brown of Little River, 450-0792. or 450-2342.
Donny and Susan Trexler of Little River, 280-6622.
www.heybabydays.com [http://www.heybabydays.com].
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