So . . . What is Beach Music?      By J.K. Loftin and Jeff Reid

Remember that weekend at the beach. . . .where you met kids from other places, where you got your first kiss and your first beer, where you experienced a lot of other things you’d never felt before?  In the 60’s and 70’s, college kids flocked to the beaches from Virginia to Georgia and were not only influenced by the sun, sand and surf, but by music as well playing on the jukeboxes and in the local venues. Returning to their college or hometown, the beach experience became imprinted on their lives. As a result, “beach music” became indelibly linked to those times.  It became incorporated into their lives, complete with a circuit of night club dancing and social life, radio stations, DJs, record labels, seasonal gatherings and beach music festivals.

In defining beach music, let’s start with what may or may not be obvious.  Its meaning is different to different people and it is safe to say, it definitely is not the 60’s West Coast sound … the Jan & Dean, Beach Boys surf music kind of thing. No, it is much different. And for those who don’t like it? Well, they described it as watered-down soul, blues or rhythm and blues,  often saying the music doesn’t require you to break out in a sweat when listening or dancing to it. And for those of us that do like it? It is that deep-grooving, behind the beat, almost to the point of stumbling on the next beat, bluesy stuff from the late 40’s, 50’s and into the early mid 60’s.  But in today’s genre-bending music world and for many listeners, the music sounds like the mid-tempo Motown sound from Detroit, mixed with the Muscle Shoals sound called “soul music”.

Despite its illusiveness to be described, over the years, beach music has adapted to and weathered many musical styles and in the beginning had a “forbidden” appeal. Early on, those beach jukeboxes had many styles of music on them. Some of them were called “race records” – original black blues artists whose songs would be covered by white artists. Or more often, they would be so laden with innuendo and primal groove that no white artist would even attempt a cover. It not only made the music a regional phenomenon, it made it taboo. It was so captivating, so forbidden and so exotic; it was completely different from Top 40 radio at the time.  But that’s not all that really defines beach music.

Where pop music of the 60’s and 70’s spawned a variety of dances like the twist, the frug and the monkey, beach music has only one, the “shag”, a form of swing dancing that evolved from the jitterbug and jump blues.  Some remember it as being called the “bop”. The tempo is steady and the groove of the songs is such that people could dance comfortably.  And yet the dance also provided something else that was vital – contact.  The shag provided a means for young people to touch - by holding hands - and move in a synchronized, rhythmic way. The upper body and hips seldom move, but the dancer’s fancy foot and leg work were the heart of the dance.  Some historians attribute the place of origin of the term “shag” to Carolina Beach.  Whatever the origins, the dance is embedded in the Carolinas as both the official state dance of North and South Carolina.

Beach music is many things to many people. But to me, it was so real, so expressive and so not-manufactured in a pop factory.  As a result, it captivated me and millions of others. Today, the ambassadors of the genre and the keepers of the sound –whatever the interpretation –are the so-called “beach bands”.  They listened to all of the above music and distilled and filtered it though their lifestyles and experiences.  Groups like The Embers, The Catalina’s, Bill Deal & the Rhondells, The Monzas, The Pieces of Eight, The Band of Oz and numerous others, all had regional hit singles that catered to the same kind of listeners. As a result, the music has become a part of the fabric of our southern coastal culture and beyond.  It has created a lifetime of good times and memories for several generations and shows no signs of fading away.