Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/116300
Spring Break Comes to Downtown by JOHN HOOK Spring Break is that magical marker in time that denotes the passing of winter There was the unnamed music which Shaggers and Boppers (or Fas' dancers and the promise of Spring. For thousands of college students that means an and Basic dancers) danced to from 1945-1965. A tiny percentage of those songs exodus to sunnier climes. For smaller children, it may mean a magical trip to were retroactively named Beach Music. Disney World or the first toes-in-the-sand visit to the beach. For those who work Local combos began to appear on college campuses before Rufus' store opened: for a living, it usually passes without much notice — but not this year. Gladiolas at Limestone College 1957, Clemson 1958, USC Chapel Hill 1958; On March 29, supporters of The Cameo will bring Spring Break to downtown Catalinas at Charlotte College 1958; Jetty Jumpers at Wilmington College 1959; and you're invited to kick off the work-week blues and join in Hot Nuts at UNC Chapel Hill 1959; 1961-1965 Plaids, the fun. Step back in time when dancing the Shag was all the Weejuns, Madras, Turk-Cords, Bob Collins and the Fabulous rage, when the soles of your Weejuns were slick from so much 5, Embers and a few others were playing the campuses, but time on the dance floor and the beach was always hopping. they still weren't *Beach Music* … The term wasn't universal The event, which is sponsored by Park View, Duggins & beyond the Beach and Conway. The first documented mention Smith Companies, Mellow Mushroom, Chuck Weber and Up of "Beach Music" we've found beyond the beach is in a May & Coming Weekly, kicks off at 3 p.m. with Shag lessons and 1967 issue of the Robesonian in Lumberton, NC. demonstrations at the Park View offices at 321 Hay St. Once Some bands played as early as 1960 and 1961 at the Magic you've figured out how to dance the Carolina's favorite dance, Attic upstairs in the Myrtle Beach pavilion. Bands played slip out onto Hay Street for the Downtown Beach Crawl, at Folly Beach pavilion in the early 60s, the fourth Pawley's which features beach bargains including everything from books Pavilion from 1960 onward, Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, and wine to beach music and art brought to you by Cape Fear and a number of other bandstands throughout the region. Studios. People showed up to Shag and Bop, but it still wasn't called Also at 3 p.m., you can slip into the Cameo to view the Beach Music until after the mid-point of the 60s. iconic film tribute to the dance, Shag. The movie, which pretty Randy Rowland of Statesville co-owned Groucho's, one of much went straight to video, is a coming-of-age story of four the premier Shag clubs in Charlotte from the 70s to the 90s. Carolina girls who shrug off their responsibilities and head Not surprisingly, he left a good, full-time job to be close to the down to the forbidden land of Myrtle Beach to participate in music and dance he loved. the Ocean Drive Shag Contest. The film is fun and, if it doesn't Shagging is a dance that fits well with Rowland also has one of those memories that are a beach music. get your feet itching to dance or at least to cruise the strand, researcher's dream. you have been working way too hard. A repeat of the film will The first three records he heard on his family's vacation be shown at 7 p.m. at Gilbert Theater. together there in 1959 were "Almost Grown" by Chuck Berry, Following the movie, you may want to grab something to eat at one of your "…some of them were half-timing to it and some of the jitterbugs were trying to favorite downtown eateries before heading over the Metropolitan Room to dance dance to it straight up [at its natural tempo]," Rowland remembers. The other two the night away to the sounds of Classic Soul and the godfathers of Beach Music, songs were "There Goes My Baby" by the Drifters and Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee." The Embers. This event, which is being touted as a "Fun" raiser, will benefit the Occasionally, Rowland and a friend visited Kostakes Music in the NoDa district Cameo Art Theatre's campaign to go digital. There will be a cash bar and pizza of North Charlotte. Kostakes was a jukebox and music distributor who sold used brought to you by Mellow Mushroom. Classic Soul will perform at 6 p.m. and at 7 records in 'grab bag' boxes of 125 for $40. "We'd take those boxes home and look p.m., The Embers will rock the house. The event is being emceed by beach music for treasures, Billy Stewart, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, and the Temptations to legend, King Curtis Carpenter, one of the founders of the CAMMY'S, North name a few," Rowland went on. "We called it 'soul' music." Carolina's own Beach Music Awards Show. After Larry Pressley's Cellar opened in 1965, Rowland and friends attended If you are not from the Carolinas, you might be wondering about this thing Wednesday nights to hear the Embers and dance to the music, but it still had called the Shag, well here's is a brief primer for you. no name. "Beach Music is Coming to Town" is a headline you couldn't see in the 1950s "We danced to it at Grace Park Recreation Center and George's in Statesville, and early 1960s, even though Beach Music was all around. Fas' dancers in the but I never heard it called 'Beach Music.' That was still true at the big 1967 dance Carolinas were steppin' to this music at the coasts, a few dozen inland armories, contest Jimmy Kilgo of TV 9's Kilgo's Canteen at the National Guard Armory in lakeside dance slabs, and other widespread pavilions. But it didn't have a name. Statesville. Kilgo had Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs set up at one end of the In 1965 Beach Music silently celebrated its 20th birthday. There still wasn't a building and the Catalinas at the other. They'd alternate, playing the music we universal name which everyone understood, it had just blossomed. Jack Stallings, loved, but it didn't have a name." one of the early Catalinas from Charlotte remembered a party they played in Randy first heard the term "Beach Music" in the Army in 1968. Conway that summer. Several times that day, a few of the kids requested some "One of the first guys I met was Durwood Martin. We used to talk about the 'beach music.' Jack finally asked what they were talking about. music that we listened and danced to back home, the music Durwood's band "You know, those songs you can hear down at the beach," they named a few by played. Durwood was an early member of the Embers. Once in a while someone the Impressions, Four Tops, and Drifters. Jack thought, 'oh, rhythm and blues, we would say, 'yeah, I miss that good old Beach Music back home.'" play that stuff all the time.' We asked Randy how he thought that 'Beach Music' might have retroactively Two years earlier, Dillon County musician Rufus Oates took the first steps of annexed songs from earlier years and moved them under the 60s' umbrella term his dream to open a music store to sell all kinds of instruments to school bands Beach Music? and musicians like himself (if it had strings, Rufus could play it — bass, mandolin, "The first record I bought was 'I'll Be Satisfied' by Jackie Wilson in 1959. I've guitar, banjo, fiddle). Rufus opened his Music Center in September 1963 back at loved that song ever since. Funny thing is, most of the records on the jukebox at the beach where he'd wanted to return since he and his wife lived in Conway a few Sonny's Pavilion on the Cherry Grove section of Ocean Drive, S.C., were still on years earlier before moving to Tarboro, NC. The dream was on with his new Beach the jukebox in 1966. They switched them out from time to time for some others, Music Center in downtown Myrtle Beach. but the same records were being rotated." Funny thing about that name … right away folks saw the sign, went in and Shag and Beach Music ended up in Panama City, Florida in 1953 as a direct, asked if he had "Sixty Minute Man," "One Mint Julep" or "Green Eyes." Ever the personal import by a young girl and two guy-friends who traveled to Ocean Drive capitalist, Rufus said he'd be getting them in pretty soon. That was the beginning just to learn the Shag. By the time they got home they'd turned the 'basic' dance of the section of his store which became the (*Beach Music* Center) inside the around. The dance became known as the P.C. Bop. Bop music dove deep to find Beach *Music Center.* the right beat in Gulf Coast rhythm and blues and blues. It took two or three years for the word to spread about the new 'Beach Music' In the Beach Music Guide Volumes 1 and 2 it is documented that the first Black store in Myrtle Beach. Apparently the term 'Beach Music' automatically made music on jukeboxes in white venues showed up in 1945 simultaneously at Carolina sense to people who had experienced the R&B heard almost exclusively on the Beach, Minnesott Beach, and Oriental Beach. It JOHN HOOK, Contributing Writer, Pavilion jukeboxes up and down the coast. wasn't by committee or telephone conference, it just COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomBeach Music is a phrase that describes more than one phenomenon. It's the happened. ingweekly.com convergence of at least three influences. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARCH 20-26, 2013 UCW 13