This is an article I wrote that first appeared in the Fall 2015 Issue of Beach Music Scene Magazine. Bo and I thought it would be a good post for Friday discussion.
What is Beach Music?
by Mike Worley
While there are several things we cannot pinpoint, one thing is certain, there are a variety of ideas and opinions about what constitutes Beach Music.
I probably have one of the most diverse tastes in music of anyone you will come across. To me the only benefit of a genre is that it brings some order to the most expansive form of art that exists. But at the end of the day, it all falls under the label of art. Some like fine art, others prefer abstract while I like and at least can appreciate it all.
Music, in general, is one the most powerful forces that exist. It has the ability to make you happy or sad, take you back in time or cause you to dream about your future. Music tells stories and has the ability to express feelings to which people connect. Music can speak to your soul, make you feel alive and if only temporarily, help you forget pain and sorrow.
The beautiful thing about beach music is that it consists of a wide variety of styles including local, regional and nationally recognized artists. If you look through beach music charts from the 60’s on through to the present, you see particular times when the charts were heavily influenced by Rock, Blues, Motown, Disco, Country or even what would be considered Main Stream styles of music. Now, take all of these genres mix them up, dump it out and what you have is Beach Music. Beach Music has something for everyone which makes it unique and appealing. To put it another way, Beach Music “colors outside of the lines”.
I realize that not everyone embraces the “new stuff” (even the term “new stuff” has different definitions by the way; meaning present day music or music beyond a particular time period such as the 60’s and 70’s). The point to note is that the “old stuff” at one time was the “new stuff”. Thankfully, at that time, the music was given a chance. Radio stations played it, jukeboxes were loaded with it, music venues and clubs hired the bands and people bought the albums. All of these variables took a song once labeled as “new stuff” turned it into a hit and over time it became what we now know as a classic.
Beach music represents a lifestyle that marches to its own beat and refuses to be boxed up and packaged a certain way just to gain approval from the masses. Beach Music has, in no way, been a flash in the pan; rather it has slowly and methodically been ingrained in the lives of countless people throughout the years and this not only insures it will live but THRIVE!
Each of us plays a part in making sure this thing we call Beach Music and the great lifestyle it entails continues to be shared and experienced by generations to come. The way time flies and music changes, just think what Beach Music will consist of in 20 years!
How would you define Beach Music?
to each his own and there are as many definitions as there are people who listen to it…I offended a DJ at Fat Harold’s one night years ago when I told him how much I enjoyed the beach music he was playing and he just stared at me and said, “I don’t play beach music, I play shag music”…and there certainly is a distinction…I do think beach music is a state of mind that associates with certain memories of the beach, whichever beach has the most and best memories to the individual…and for me it’s NMB…
I truly believe Beach Music is more of a lifestyle than a form of music. There are certain generic and popular qualities, but for the most part it’s just borrowing from other genres of music. We party and dance in our own community to almost every form of original American music from Jazz, Blues, R&B, Soul, Country, Pop, Hip-Hop and Rock and Roll.
Don’t get me wrong, certain elements are a must:
1) Smooth Grooves to Upbeat tempos but hardly ever dragging or crazy fast
2) Lyrically positive or humorous for the most part
3) Normally happy melodic lines and chord progressions
4) and basic instrumentation of popular 20th century bands (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and horns)
Like I say, it’s not even always the case in all those regards. That’s why you’ll probably never see “Beach Music” have a category in Billboard (do they still do that… Haha) or The GRAMMYs. However, as many genres fade even in mainstream, our music seems to stand the test of time and hold steadfast. We are looking at 70 years of classics from the infant stages of R&B thru Motown, Disco, Techno, Retro, Americana up to today’s radio hits and regional singer/songwriters and bands. We actually have our own niche. I love it. It’s my home and I love the people who live here in this beach house with me. Long live the lifestyle!
In the late forties big bands up north were playing fast catchy music that led to the “Jitterbug” dancers!
Down south there were no big bands or huge ballrooms for dancing! However, we had black music that came to be known as R&B! Everybody in the south went to the Carolina beaches several times a year! What did we do there? We played R&B on the jukebox, slowed down the jitterbug to fit the slower beat, and created “the shag and “Beach Music” at the same time! The rest is history!
Hi, I like Tom Boggs’ summary of how the shag and beach music slowly originated into what we know it to be today. I also know what the DJ @ Fat Harold’s meant about “not playing beach music, he played shag music”. Some people really don’t know the difference. There is a book about the history of “Shag”, and I haven’t researched to get the name for this comment – I bought the book, and it’s packed up in a box in my garage because I recently moved. I’ll find the name of that book – in the meantime – if any of you know, please share it with us. Thanks, Mike, for bringing this article to us.
My Mom was raised in Philly and was on the Dick Clark American Bandstand show a few times. She called the Shag “The jitterbug on Valium.”
Thanks Jim for your comment and insight to today’s discussion! Also, thanks Tom and Ben for your contributions!
Mike
My name is Steve Baker, member of the Beach Music Dj Hall of Fame and 8 time past president of the Association of Beach and Shag Club DJ’s. I like to think about our music as such, think about a wagon wheel with the center hub being shag and beach music and each spoke representing a different style of which there are many. Remember the dance always dictates the music, it always comes first.
Thx
Steve
I think it could and should be more clearly defined. I know I’m a minority with this perspective, but I think we know and understand enough about a tune to know if it fits when we hear it, therefore we know enough to establish Beach Music as a genre.
As for Steve’s comment…in today’s beach music world that is certainly not true. Shaggers are dancing to tunes that are definitely not beach music, so that analogy does not work. But, in my warped opinion it should work Since they (the music and the dance) have similar roots, they should be more closely connected. I think there should be three basic guidelines to determine if a tune is beach music. Please don’t misunderstand…I know this is not these are not the guidelines used today, this is just my opinion of how we can establish beach music as a genre.
1.Lyrical content that reflects the lifestyle ie: the dance, the beach, the clubs, etc
2. The beat. If they could be connected (I believe they should) for a tune to be beach music it should have the shag beat.
3. This is the tough one. The tune would have to have the feel that we all recognize when we say”that’s beach music”
While agree any particular dance dictates the music, let’s be clear…all dance originated from the music.
One of the all time favorite definitions was given by my radio brother and 2001 posthumous inductee into the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame, the late, great J.W. Pittman: “If it was playing on the jukebox at the Coachman and Four Club when I had a cold Budweiser in my hand, then it’s beach music.”
Growing up in Richmond Virginia, the beach my family visited most often was Virginia Beach. It was close, within a two hour drive or so, and where my parents spent most of the weekends in their younger days. Virginia Beach was home to the Peppermint Beach Club where my Mom and Dad loved listening and dancing to Bill Deal and the Rhondels. My Dad said that all the guys would go early in the day to get their wristbands when it was “cheaper” and then go back to the room to get ready. My Mom said all the girls would stay on the beach as long as possible working on their tans and making the boys wait. Well, I guess they knew what they were doing; it’s where they fell in love. My parents eloped from Richmond Virginia to Dillon South Carolina in 1966. I never got the story on why they went to Dillon but I know they loved to come down to Myrtle Beach for special vacations.
As a young child, I remember the family get-togethers at our house and my Aunts house across the street. Their favorite music included Elvis, Motown and of course Carolina Beach Music. When the song ‘Carolina Girls’ would come on the record player, my Dad would pick me up and twirl me around. To this day I can’t listen to that song without thinking of some of the milestones in my life. He and my Mom taught me to dance before my first middle school event and of course, that was one of the songs that played. Sometimes on Saturdays then (and even now) my Mom and I would dance around the house singing at the top of our lungs and believe me, we cannot sing, but we have a ball. My Dad and I even danced to ‘Carolina Girls’ at my wedding. My Mother is from Rocky Mount North Carolina and he used to say that even though I was born in Virginia, I was a Carolina Girl at heart. He said that Carolina Girls had a certain spirit you could see from across the room.
It must be true because in 1995, I was living in White Bear Lake Minnesota, just north of the Twin Cities freezing to death and made the decision to up and move to the beach – my beach – Myrtle Beach. Even though I only visited a couple of times as a child, my Dad and I began coming on golf trips when I was older and I visited more often. We would play golf, get cleaned up and head out to hear that special sound we loved and I could only get here. In the early 1990’s, my Father and I bought a beach front condo near Ocean Annie’s during one of those vacations filled with golf and beach music. We just got tired of spending our vacation time talking about how ‘nothing could be finer than to live in Carolina’. Finally on one trip, after the first day, we called a realtor, looked at three properties and put in an offer, while making all of our tee times and celebrated down on Main Street, North Myrtle Beach. A week later he was back in Richmond, I was in White Bear Lake, but we were beach condo owners and this Carolina Girl’s spirit found it hard to stay in Minnesota; so hard so that only months later I moved to the beach. That made it hard on Dad and just two short years later, he was here too.
It wasn’t until I was living here that I realized that almost everything associated with good and fun in my life has been accompanied by Beach Music. As I mentioned, it was at the crazy house parties and family gatherings we had when I was growing up, I learned to dance to it, my Mom and I had some of our best days singing around the house (and still do), I danced to it at my wedding and it has always been an important “to do” on vacations. My husband and I wish we could go out more often to listen to music now. Our kids think we are crazy when we hear our favorite songs and jump out on the dance floor at weddings and such. I tell my kids now that they won’t appreciate where they’ve grown up until they go away to college or move away for a career. It must be in their blood because when I do tell them that, my youngest looks at me inquisitively and says, “Why would I ever do that?”
Awesome! Thanks for sharing that Shan.