OK, let's just get this straight- Beach Music has nothing to do with the Beach Boys.  And, in my humble opinion, it has little to do with such dubious songs as "I love Beach Music".  Beach music is a genre  of music- more  a state of mind than  a specific sound- that became popular  with high school and college students  dancing at the beach along the South Atlantic coast in the early 1960s.  It is music to dance the shag to, which is the offical state dance of South Carolina, in case you were wondering.  If you are under about 50, your love for beach music is likely to be anachronistic, since your contemporaries were listening to  the Doobie Brothers, or  Cream, or  Michael Jackson, or  the Police, or  Madonna,  or Nirvana, or whoever came next, none of whom are likely to have made a Beach Music record.

Beach Music is moderate in tempo and tends to have a simple, danceable beat. The original songs were on jukeboxes in juke joints all across the south, by performers like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke, Sam and Dave, the Coasters, the Drifters, The Four Tops, Otis Redding,  Archie Bell and the Drells,  the Spinners, Van Morrison,  Louis Prima,  etc. If you ever went to a wedding and there were a bunch of guys there from Sewanee, or Richmond, or Charleston and they all danced a lot, it was probably because they  liked beach music. Or, if you have ever wandered into a gathering of people where the men looked like 60 year old fraternity boys and the women wore a lot of bright colors and everybody had a tan, chances are, they danced to Beach Music, too.

The genre is infinitely expandable- it includes Bobby Darrin and Nina Simone, not to mention a fair amount of Standards from the forties.  About 80% of the soundtrack from THE COMMITMENTS would qualify as Beach Music, as would a lot of  the songs The Blues Brothers did.  Whether  it was held onto since it was new, or simply revived and adopted when Animal House came out, the Isley Brothers' SHOUT has long been a Beach Music favorite.

Just as these tunes span a wide continuum, so do the styles of dancing they inspire. One school of thought has it that the shag is to be danced with a beer in  your hand, moving as little as possible above the waist. Another view is that really good dancing is complex and fun to watch- like the rumba or the jitterbug, only slowed way down, with plenty of turns and fancy steps.  They both believe you need to hold one hand and move- the rest is somewhere between the two poles.

As Louis Armstrong famously said about the Blues, chances are, if I have to explain it, you won't fully understand,. I do hope, though, that this little guide has been helpful to you and that you will consider looking at my other guides and reviews. I also have an eBay Blog that is sometimes worthwhile, so check it out, too.

Thanks

Wentworth Tradd