Along the roughly 100-mile stretch of coastline from Wilmington to Myrtle Beach, residents of North and South Carolina unite on the dance floor under a single banner: Carolina beach music.
Going on eight decades since it first appeared in the 1940s and ’50s, the regional genre has taken on a life of its own. There are local clubs dedicated to Carolina beach music up and down the mid-Atlantic seaboard, as well as national events and festivals.
It has its own record labels and radio stations, an annual awards ceremony for performers, and several halls of fame for “shaggers” — participants in the competitive couple’s dance that developed alongside the musical style.
“Everyone still old enough to remember (which isn’t too many) has their own stories to tell,” said Linda Reeder, executive secretary for Hall of Fame Foundation — a charity with ties to the Beach Shaggers National Hall of Fame.
Yet, even as the original generations of shag fans hand in their dance cards to another wave, Carolina beach music’s ability to transcend regional and racial boundaries, to bridge generational gaps, and to evolve along the way have all helped ensure that it will stand the test of time.
MUSICAL CHAIRMEN
What most distinguishes Carolina beach music from other styles are its influences and overall feel, according to Ken Knox, longtime saxophonist and current band leader for the Chairmen of the Board. The group is best known for its No. 3 soul hit “Give Me Just a Little More Time.”
“What we always try to do is to give upbeat music for the culture, for the region,” he told Carolina Journal. “… To me, Carolina beach music is R&B with a happy feeling.”
Knox was raised in Detroit, where he was steeped in the soulful influences of Berry Gordy’s famed Motown label and the booming business that accompanied it.
“One guy from The Capitols lived down the street from me,” he said. “Around the corner was Lawrence Payton from The Four Tops — I was surrounded with this stuff.”
In 1973, Knox won an audition to be in the Chairmen, a group formed by General Norman Johnson (“General” was not a rank but Johnson’s first name) that featured several R&B veterans ready to show the young horn player the ropes and expand his musical education.
“Our rhythm section was The Funkadelics,” Knox recalled, referring to the band that found even bigger fame in the funk genre with Kannapolis native George Clinton as its band leader.
Weaving seamlessly among many genres — and pioneering new ones — was not uncommon for black artists of the day. Clinton’s first group, The Parliaments, began in 1955 as a doo-wop act.
General Johnson found early fame as a member of The Showmen, whose song “It Will Stand” inspired hits like Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” It would become one of the early staples of the Carolina shag scene.
Although General Johnson died in 2010, Knox credited his brilliance as an artist and a businessman with laying the foundation for what would become the Carolina beach-music movement.
“His voice and writing caught the ears of [legendary Motown songwriting trio] Holland-Dozier-Holland up in Detroit, which is what brought him in to lead Chairmen of the Board,” Knox said.
“But General was also a complete visionary,” Knox added. “When we started coming south from Detroit, he looked at the Myrtle Beach scene and saw an open door. He knew exactly how to establish us there and create a real stronghold on the beach-music genre.”
Johnson and Knox would go on to co-found a beach music label, Charlotte-based Surfside Records, in the late 1970s.
“It was like working with a mentor who hand-delivered an education in music production,” Knox said. “… It was an incredible era of creativity and business partnership.”
The group’s chart success ended in the early ’70s, but its devoted following has continued, courtesy of hits like the 1980 release “Carolina Girls,” which has become one of the most popular songs in the Chairmen’s repertoire.
BLACK, WHITE & (LIL) REDD ALL OVER
As a result of its broad appeal, Carolina beach music played an important role in bringing together black and white cultures during the era of segregation, Knox noted.
“My understanding is that when the white kids would go to the beach, that’s the only chance they had to hear this upbeat R&B music by black artists,” he said. “And then, when they got home, I guess they would just say… ‘that’s Carolina beach music.’”
Few may appreciate the music’s ability to bring racial unity like Dianne Cottle‒Pope, current booker/manager of The Tams. The group topped the charts in the 1960s with hits like “What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)” and “Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy.”
Originally from China Grove, Cottle‒Pope, who is white, said she first met The Tams — an all-black group at the time — during a show at Charlotte’s Park Center (now the Grady Cole Center), which “had all the big acts,” including performers like James Brown and Bo Diddley, she wrote in an email.
Whites and blacks both attended shows at the venue but were forced to sit on different levels, which alternated depending on who the act was.
Cottle‒Pope went on to help The Tams spread their sound to other cities, even though not everyone approved at first.
“[W]e were Shagging all over the Carolina,” she said. “… It was still a lot of Prejudice. But they loved the Tams. So it wasn’t as bad for them.”
She eventually wed band member Albert Cottle Sr. in 1967, after the Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia ended laws banning interracial marriage.
“We tried to marry everywhere. But it was against the law,” Cottle‒Pope said.
“My family disowned me because of that,” she added. “But it took a lot of years for them to come around.
After Cottle’s death she was remarried to another founding member, Charles Pope. Pope’s brother Joseph was also in the band, and their brother Otis was one of the original tour managers, making it a full family affair.
Cottle‒Pope’s son Albert Jr. (aka Lil Redd) became the current bandleader for The Tams after Charles passed away in 2013.
One of Cottle‒Pope’s daughters, Tameka, is also a performer, having co-written the TLC hit “No Scrubs” while a member of the group Xscape. Tameka is married to rapper T.I.
The Tams have now welcomed in a third generation, Lil Redd’s son Mikai Cottle.
CUTTING A RUG
Like Knox, Cottle‒Pope defined Carolina beach music as a blend of R&B and pop music, while adding one additional criterion: “They were the groups to shag to,” she said.
Theories of the dance’s origin vary, though they all contain common elements of it being a youth-driven answer to its more formal precursors.
For some, the shag “evolved from watching black dancers from back in the day” and trying to imitate the moves depicted in early black cinema, Knox said.
“In Detroit, the ‘shag’ to us was called the ‘bop’” he said. “And then when you go to D.C., it’s called hand dancing. And then, the farther south you go, it becomes ‘shag.’ … Different areas, different names, but still basically the same dance.”
According to Hall of Fame Foundation President Nick Mathis, the shag also had its roots in dances of the 1940s and ’50s that were popular among white audiences, such as the Lindy hop and jitterbug.
The reason for its appeal was straightforward: “young men wanting to get to know young ladies,” he said. “… It evolved as a male-dominated dance where the ladies tried to make the guys look good.”
The proximity of Fort Bragg and other military bases to coastal destinations like Carolina Beach may have helped it to spread in the World War II era.
“[A] lot of soldiers stationed in NC came to the beach and introduced Jitterbug to the populace in the 1940s,” Mathis said. “… I would not be surprised if some of the returning GIs from the war had an effect on the evolution.”
Still, another historical explanation links shagging to the foxtrot, which debuted as a fast-paced ballroom dance in 1914, a sort of modified waltz that relied on a 4‒4 time signature, influenced by blues music and Vaudeville performances.
During the Roaring ’20s, that morphed into the collegiate shag, which later developed its own permutations — most notably the now-iconic Carolina shag.
PROMOTIONAL PROWESS
Music and dancing may have been the heart and soul of Carolina beach music. However, a hefty dose of promotion and marketing also helped secure its legacy.
A lot of the early black beach-music artists were drawn to what Knox called the “Holiday Inn circuit,” comprising several of the hotel chain’s locations in and around Myrtle Beach.
“We would go from Holiday Inn North to Holiday Inn Downtown, which is Myrtle Beach. Then we would go to Holiday Inn Surfside,” he said.
Some of the top venues were located just north of Myrtle Beach on US 17, in a stretch known as “Restaurant Row.” Among those was a one-story cinderblock building known simply as the Beach Club, which brought top acts such as The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Drifters, The Coasters, The Tams, and The Zodiacs — not to mention the Chairmen of the Board, Knox said.
Although the site is now home to Bennett’s Calabash Seafood Restaurant, the company started by renowned promoter Cecil Corbett, Beach Club Promotions, evolved into the concert juggernaut Live Nation.
“A lot of people don’t know that,” Knox said. “But yeah, he was a partner in the early Live Nation because he was the only one that was bringing groups like the Rolling Stones — all your major artists.”
According to a 1995 resolution by the South Carolina legislature honoring Corbett (who grew up in Wilmington), “as beach music has continued to grow and spread into national prominence, thousands of South Carolinians who experienced this superb slice of life know what an invaluable part ‘The Beach Club’ played in it all.”
It noted that the club closed its doors “on Labor Day weekend in 1971 with Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs bringing down the curtain on a golden era.”
THE NEXT WAVE
Beach music enjoyed a major resurgence in the 1980s, as Baby Boomers, now in their adult prime, sought to recapture the nostalgia.
“When I came to the N Myrtle Beach area in the late 50’s there were hundreds of different kids dancing at the joints every weekend all summer long,” Mathis said in an email.
“As these kids went off to colleges and other avenues the dance faded in the late sixties,” he added. “These same folks came out during the 1980’s and a renaissance of the shag took place with thousands of dancers mostly in their late thirties to early fifties.”
Longtime shaggers credit the preservation of the beach-music movement to groups like the Society of Stranders, named for the “Grand Strand” stretch of highway that runs through Myrtle Beach.
The organization presents regular workshops and functions as a hub for many of the local beach-music resources, including links to various shag clubs and events. It also organizes two 10-day events per year in North Myrtle Beach, the next of which will be its Fall Migration in September.
The Hall of Fame also began around the same time to celebrate “those that have contributed to the dance,” Reeder said.
Nationally, the inclusion of 1960s beach-music hits in movies like 1987’s “Dirty Dancing” and 1989’s “Shag,” a cult classic starring Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda, helped reintroduce the music to the next generation.
Major musicians also started to take note, bringing the classic beach bands in on collaborations. A highlight for Knox was working with Frankie Valli.
“I grew up listening to the harmonies of The Four Seasons, and then, when we got a chance to perform with them, I was over the moon,” he said.
As for The Tams, one of their famous fans, Jimmy Buffet, turned out to be the pioneer of a different sort of “beach” music.
“Jimmy loved the Tams from his Alabama college days,” recalled Cottle‒Pope. Through a friend, Billy Sturgis, the “Margaritaville” singer reached out to The Tams about contributing to a song, “Flesh and Bones,” on his 1999 album “Beach House on the Moon.”
“He flew them to Clinton Studio in New York to record with him,” Cottle‒Pope said. “And they went on tour in 2000 with him. He was such a great guy.”
The Tams’ hits have endured the test of time, with TikTokers and a Publix commercial that featured “Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy” continuing to bring them to new audiences.
As it did in the late 1970s, the beach-music scene ebbed a bit during the grunge-music era. However, with hundreds of younger dancers now rediscovering it, shaggers are hoping to enjoy yet another season in the sun.
“A whole generation the age of my children did not carry on the tradition of the dance,” Mathis said. “Hopefully the young dancers will inspire many of their peers to take up the dance of a lifetime!”
