Shagging on the Strand

Myrtle Beach calls itself The Home of Shag, a claim that has drawn fire from Folly Beach, Columbia, Charlotte, Greensboro, Burlington, Durham, Raleigh, Dunn and Carolina Beach. Whatever its roots, shagging is a 70-year-long dance tradition that has thrived almost exclusively in the Carolinas, kept alive through continuous innovations and embellishments that over the years have given us the boogie walk and the fly-back. Carolina Beach emphatically claims the 360-degree pivot.

When shag first took to the dance floor in the 1930s, Mama wasn’t too keen on what she considered to be race music, and she was firmly opposed to the sexually suggestive moves that went along with it. Teenagers pretty much snuck out of the house through the usual methods. Maybe boys were a little better than girls at shinnying down drainpipes, and that could account for a high male-to-female ratio in shag’s early days.

The term “shag” traditionally has had overtly sexual connotations in the British lexicon, not to mention in the old Austin Powers movies (“The Spy Who Shaggged Me”). In any event, times have changed and now Mama is likely to be out on the dance floor executing the belly roll in front of hundreds of onlookers.

The basic shag step is done in a six- or eight-count rhythm in four/four time, stepping forward, stepping backward, and a rocking step, which in combination looks deceptively easy. Dance historians believe it originated with swing dancing during the Big Band Era—the breakaway, the hop and the Lindy—and made its way southward from the fabulous Savoy Hotel in Harlem. Interestingly, they also somehow believe it migrated northward from the Mississippi and Louisiana deltas, following the same route as jazz and the jitterbug. Little wonder the ownership claims are so difficult to establish.

A rainbow of cultural influences

The pioneers of shag in Myrtle Beach were white teenage boys who “jumped the Jim Crow rope” when the beach was segregated. They watched from a balcony in a black nightclub called The Whispering Pines to soak up the R&B music and the sultry, undulating dance moves, and then they had to persuade the guy who loaded up the jukeboxes in the white community to bring in the race music so they could try out their footwork on their friends. Their efforts were met with stiff resistance in a Southern Baptist community that considered dancing of any kind on a par with drinking and gambling.

Aboard the slave ships in transit across the ocean, the sailors would bring up the slaves from the hold and force them to dance as a means of getting them some exercise. Inspired, they wound up dancing right along with them in what was the first combining of West European and primitive African styles.

The “posture of the hunt” figured into both styles. Africans hunted barefooted, crouching as they snuck up on their prey. Europeans rode upright on horseback, moving only their feet and legs. Think of the crouching position of the jitterburg and the erect posture of Irish step dancing (“Riverdance”). Now put them together and also slow them down considerably—because that’s the Southern way—and you’ve got the shag. It’s as good an illustration of the great American melting pot as any.

Another ancient African tradition was the circle dance, and that turned up on this continent as the Big Apple. It showed up in South Carolina at Sam’s Big Apple Club in Columbia, a total package of undulating shoulders and waving arms. Anthropologists have made huge studies of the religious traditions of primitive tribes and how they have stepped onto American dance floors to the heavy beat of a bass drum.

Early elements of the movement

The old Myrtle Beach Pavilion was shag headquarters in the 1940s. Teenagers wanted only a jukebox and a dance floor, and the jukeboxes (sometimes called piccolos) were Wurlitzers, Seeburgs and Rock-olas that played 78 rpm platters. These jukes glowed in the dark like a supernatural spirit, and for only a nickel they’d channel a raspy tin tune from a faraway place that opened with a SHHHH. RCA Victor introduced the 45 rpm in 1949 and the fidelity of musical recordings was henceforth vastly improved. The Dominoes released “Sixty Minute Man” in 1951 and it became the beach bums’ national anthem.

At the Crystal Club in Manhattan, “Shorty” George Snowden broke away from his partner and improvised some new moves on the spot. It was not so much that particular maneuver as the practice of striking off on one’s own that the shaggers called “the shorty george.”

The places along the Grand Strand that attracted this crowd were gritty at best; in some instances earth floors or, best case, rough-hewn planks. Rarely would the flooring be as upscale as bare concrete. The crowds were packed in solid, the humidity typically stood at about 80 percent, and the only place that was bearable before air conditioning was the oceanfront pavilion-type structure. The breeze off the ocean was a high-octane fuel that mixed freely with the gallons of sweat that poured off the dancers.

When Myrtle Beach pavilion closed down at 10 p.m., shaggers headed out for Spivey’s Pavilion, a ramshackle beer joint on the outskirts of town. The hard-core late-nighters prided themselves on being individualists and nonconformists, a sort of dancer’s equivalent of the beat poets, and many slept on the beach by day and danced all night, or they might overload a beach house with far too many kids and way too much dirty laundry.

Their anti-establishment image oftentimes attracted a certain unsavory element, and they also regularly ran up against military personnel from nearby bases trying to move in on their scant supply of women. The cops had a certain tendency to take sides with the military types, and plenty of the tough guys displayed their scar or broken nose as a badge of honor, a rite of passage, a lasting souvenir of a wild drunken summer on the beach. What started with fistfights in the ‘30s and ‘40s evolved into knives and switchblades during the ‘50s and ‘60s.

At the recent reunions these stories have become as inflated as the Hindenburg, and the story-telling competition can extend a weekend at the beach to a week, a week to a month, a month to an entire summer. These shag historians have put together elaborate chronicles of who did what, and where, and some of these tales may have at their base some small grain of truth.

The beat goes on

Dusk-to-dawn blackouts were enforced along the coast during World War II, and during a time when no lights were allowed at night on the beach the scene moved inland to Goldston’s Pavilion at White Lake, NC. Prior to this time race music was found only on jukeboxes at the beach, and that’s pretty much how it came to be known as beach music. When it left the beach it just kept going, and jump joints after the war sprang up everywhere.

Conservative Charleston had a dance pavilion at Folly Beach where decorum was everything, and the dance took on overtones of extreme understatement. In inland, industrialized areas where life moved fast, the dance became more complex and frenzied. The laidback style that emerged from the coast was a fusion of Myrtle Beach and Carolina Beach, where the cultures were similar.

R&B music emerged during the war and was marketed primarily to black audiences. It came as a big surprise to the record companies that white middle-class kids at the beach were big customers. Marketing departments had been targeting the jukeboxes along the so-called chicken shack circuit.

At Myrtle Beach the scene with the cops heated up and it was a bit cooler only by a few degrees at The Pad in Ocean Drive, 15 miles north. The Pad was a dilapidated beer joint covered with graffiti and, by late Saturday night, knee-deep in beer cans. The seating was salvaged from old junk cars and the beer was tepid The Pad opened in the 1950s and hosted the shag crowd for 39 years before it was ultimately—and deservedly—demolished. Fat Harold Bessent was the patron saint of the shag, and at one time or another he owned The Pad, The Barrel and The Spanish Galleon.

In the ‘30s and ‘40s guys wore tailored trousers, peg-legged and pleated, a sort of knockoff of the zoot suit. Their hair was combed in ducktails, and often waxed and peroxided. The girls wore close-fitting short shorts. This evolved through the 1950s and ‘60s into madras shirts, bright Bermuda shorts, white ducks and khakis. The girls unfailingly wore a single strand of pearls.

The only constant in this sea of variables was the footwear, penny loafers from the start, well-worn creases across the toe to prove they’d been thoroughly broken in, and no socks. Eventually Bass “Weejuns” became almost a requirement.

In 1954 Hurricane Hazel wiped out Roberts Pavilion on Ocean Drive, Sonny’s Pavilion and Spivey’s Pavilion—and yet the oceanfront Myrtle Beach Pavilion stood firm and shagged on. It finally succumbed to a wrecking ball in 2006.

Keep on truckin’

James Dean and Elvis paraded across the national stage, fueling the hoodlum element. Flower children, motorcycle gangs and rock-n-roll bands followed, and big hotels replaced the cozy guest houses that lined the shore of the Grand Strand. The landscape was changing in every possible way, and yet the shag persevered. Both the Charleston and the Big Apple originated in South Carolina, both spread to other places, and both had long ago died out. A lot of people thought the shag endured because it never left home.

Over the years the dance evolved, which is another thing that kept it alive. The truly great shaggers came up with moves like the mirror step and the drop spin, just to keep it interesting. In the old days the female maintained the basic step while the male executed the complex maneuvers, and as times have changed the role of the sexes has equalized on the dance floor.

The shag has taken on the sort of cult following it has today spearheaded by the KMA, Knights of Many Adventures, a group that had a back room at The Pad with mattresses strewn about the floor for lounging. This was the inner sanctum, where only the anointed few could enter. A big part of the dance was a cool and nonchalant demeanor, coupled with the ability to make even the most complex step appear effortless. If you could accomplish all that, you could get into the back room at The Pad.

In 1973 the Jolly Knave in Atlantic Beach held a shag contest attended by dancers from miles around, and other venues in other towns soon rode the coattails of this madly successful event. The Embers in Raleigh and The Underground Bar in Greensboro also attracted big crowds, and then a professional circuit developed with the old-timers giving lessons and demonstrations.

In 1980 a reunion at The Pad brought about the creation of the Society of Stranders, or SOS, and that event went annual and then later bi-annual, with the Spring Safari and the Fall Migration. The shag was born again, and moving into its second golden age.

In 1984, the South Carolina legislature pronounced the shag the official state dance, “one of the great developments in terpsichorean culture.” Leave it to a bunch of politicians to obfuscate the simple concept of dance with a legalistic, multi-syllabic word. Following that watershed event the Shag Preservation Association was formed, as well as the Shag Hall of Fame and the National Shag Championships.

SOS and ACSC

The Society of Stranders (SOS) and the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs (ACSC) come together to hold the Spring Safari and the Fall Migration, and have now added a mid-winter event to help tide people over. Each annual celebration has a tradition of its own, each attracts something in the range of 15,000 visitors, and of course all are very competitive.

On the last Saturday of spring the clubs parade down Main Street in North Myrtle Beach on foot or aboard floats, looking to win big prizes for originality and “best shag theme.” The Fall Migration goes on for a full ten days, and Fun Sunday and Fun Monday are the big block parties with the proverbial dancing in the street. Live bands set up near the intersection of Main Street and Ocean Boulevard, with the full festival atmosphere of food, drinks and merchandise. The fall event also includes an annual charity golf tournament and fun run poker. The nightclubs that are involved in both events are Fat Harold’s, Ducks, Ducks II, the OD Arcade and the clubs at the OD Beach & Golf Resort.

Despite its name, the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs has member clubs from Florida to Pennsylvania. Every summer ACSC schedules a three-day workshop and chooses a member organization to host it. The long weekend starts with event planning and information sharing sessions but, sooner or later, it gets down to some actual dancing.

The Carefree Times is the official quarterly newsletter, two issues mailed to members and two distributed at the spring and fall events. In areas where the concentration of shag enthusiasm is high, more than one shag club is listed in ACSC literature. Three are in the immediate Myrtle Beach area.

The OD Shag Club

Sometimes you’ll hear the shag called “that ol’ dirty dance,” but that has nothing to do with the OD Shag Club. The OD stands for Ocean Drive, and since those early years Ocean Drive has become one of the four municipalities that make up North Myrtle Beach—Cherry Grove Beach, Ocean Drive Beach, Crescent Beach and Windy Hill Beach.

The club is headquartered at Fat Harold’s in North Myrtle Beach. And yes, that’s the same Fat Harold who has been running jump joints for the past half century. Fat Harold’s “baby sister” is HOTO—Harold’s on the Ocean. Both run a consistent calendar of DJs, beach music and shag lessons, but the original Fat Harold’s is far more devoted to the shag than its baby sister.

With over 800 members from Texas to England, The OD Shag Club has to shake a leg to keep things hopping, and it schedules two or three parties per month in addition to the local ACSC and SOS events. It covers all the traditional holidays from Easter to Christmas, making this a truly extended family for long-time members.

OD Pavilion Social & Shag Club

This group is dedicated to the memory of all the coastal dance pavilions that fostered the shag, and has worked with the state to erect historical markers for those that played a key role. In particular it is focused on the OD Pavilion, “the only one still open that supports the shag dance.” The OD Pavilion stands on the site of the former Roberts Pavilion, a victim of Hurricane Hazel, and the historical marker gives its dates as 1936-1954. The new pavilion was built on the old pavilion’s foundation using salvaged timbers.

The club was instrumental in the erection of a historical marker commemorating Sonny’s Pavilion, built by N.F. “Sonny” Nixon in 1949. Ocean Drive had a strict midnight curfew but Cherry Grove did not, and shaggers moved over to Sonny’s for the midnight-to-dawn shift. Sonny’s also went down in Hurricane Hazel but Nixon rebuilt it the next year. It became an arcade in the 1970s and ultimately was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

No salute to local dance pavilions would be complete without a shout-out to the Myrtle Beach Pavilion on the boardwalk which, according to the historical marker, was actually a series of four pavilions from 1902 to 2006, all built by the Burroughs & Chapin Co. The first was a simple shelter built in 1902, the second a frame building built in 1907. The third, a two-story structure, burned in 1944 and was replaced in 1949 by a concrete pavilion. It closed and was demolished in 2006.

Aside from placing historical markers, the OD Pavilion Social & Shag Club also manages to throw some parties and do some dancing on an irregular schedule generally relating to major holidays. It also holds a charity golf tournament over Memorial Day weekend and an annual “booze cruise.”

South Strand Shag Club

The Pawley’s Island gang shags every Saturday night from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. at the VFW in Murrell’s Inlet. They also throw quarterly parties and take particular pride in their New Years bash. The Pawley’s Island Pavilion was one of the area’s major shag venues during the ‘50s and ‘60s, but it burned to the ground in 1970 leaving a community of dancers in search of a dance floor.

With about 300 members the club gets involved in all aspects of the community through local demonstrations, involvement with the Junior Shaggers Association, and charitable donations to needy families. Some of its members are in the ACSC Shaggers Hall of Fame, one of them is a Living Legend, and several have won the national competition.

National Shag Dance Championship

Of course the national competition is in Myrtle Beach, so maybe “home of shag” or even “birthplace of shag” would not be exactly the precise terminology. What about “headquarters” or “capital,” designations that would likely go undisputed?

Since1984, NSDC has held its preliminaries over two weekends in late January, when it narrows the field down for the finals in March. A couple years ago, NSDC started “Shagging with the Stars,” an event that pairs local celebrities with shag professionals and allows them exactly 12 hours of practice before stepping out in front of the judges during the late January event. Audience applause is part of the overall rating system, so that celebrities who are really popular might compensate for lack of practice or talent.

Shag Preservation Association

As shag contests grew in popularity, so too did disputes surrounding contest formats, standardized judging, eligible contestants, etc. Beach club owners came together in 1981 to organize a coherent network and promote cooperation and communication. The result has been a slate of sanctioned contests and an even longer slate of non-sanctioned contests throughout the southeastern region, depending on which of them feels like playing by the association’s rules.

Also an organization called Shag Tour maintains a web site with hundreds of names of shag dancers, past and present, along with a list of upcoming events.

Junior Shag Association

Members have to be under 21, and they have clubs just like the grown-ups. In fact, most of the junior clubs are attached to grown-up clubs, and take lessons or practice in the same venues, usually earlier in the day before the adults move in. There are several in the Myrtle Beach area: Ducks and Fat Harold’s in North Myrtle Beach both have junior chapters. Fat Harold’s holds a free junior shag and social on the first Saturday of each month, with basic lessons at 3 p.m. and open dancing for ages six through 17 beginning at 4 p.m. The OD Arcade group welcomes juniors “accompanied by a responsible adult” at any of its regular events unless otherwise specified. Boulevard Grill in North Myrtle Beach has a similar policy. The juniors have their own division in the national championship competition.

South Carolina Barbecue and Shag Festival

Hemingway is a few miles inland but it refuses to be left out of the beach scene. It dares to call itself the Barbecue Capital of the World, another open invitation for heated controversy if not fisticuffs. The little town holds its big festival in April with live bands and shagging late into the night. It’s also a major cook-off and serves up the usual festival stuff – vendors, rides, inflatables, a petting zoo, a beauty pageant, a car show – and a few interesting quirks such as a cat show and a Civil War reenactment.

Fat Harold’s and Hoto

As noted, Fat Harold was an icon of the early days of shaggery, and now has places in North Myrtle Beach that continue in his dedicated area of expertise. The location at 212 Main Street offers free shag lessons on Tuesdays, 7 to 9 p.m., which begin with an overview of shag history before getting into the basic steps. Lunch with Lulu is a regular feature every Friday at noon at the so-called Shag City Grill. The place is slammed every night of the week and it’s within walking distance of many major hotels. Most nights there’s a cover charge. Call (843) 249-5779.

Harold’s on the Ocean (Hoto) similarly runs a calendar of live bands and DJs, but maybe without quite the emphasis on shag. On the other hand, you can eat on the deck with a full view of the ocean. It’s at 2301 North Ocean Blvd., (843) 249-5601.

Ducks and Ducks Too

Your options are wide open here. You can shag or watch the shaggers. With two separate dance floors, you can also dance something besides the shag, hip-hop or alternative, as unthinkable as that may seem here in Shag City. Or you can go sit outside in the sidewalk café where people-watching on Main Street is pretty good too. Find them all at 229 Main Street, (843) 663-3858.

OD Pavilion

Lots of special events are loaded on top of a slate of permanent attractions such as an arcade, grill and amusement park. This means the whole deal: a roller coaster, Ferris wheel, bumper cars, pinball and cotton candy. One of the special shag events is the annual pot luck in October to honor the new Hall of Fame inductees. It’s oceanfront and it’s “on the horseshoe” at 91 South Ocean Blvd., (843) 238-3787.

Ocean Drive Beach & Golf Resort

The Spanish Galleon is a short elevator ride from the hotel, and in an adjacent hallway all things shag are enshrined in what amounts to a shagger’s hall of fame, a museum-type display of photos and bios of hundreds of shagging stars along with a salute to the legendary Spanish Galleon Night Life. The OD Beach Club is part of the same ground-floor complex, just around the corner from the Spanish Galleon, and in the same place you’ll find The Grille and The Tiki Bar, each with their distinct flavors and atmospheres. Of course you can shag anywhere you want, but it’s the Spanish Galleon that plays shag music amidst a sea of food and drink, music and dance, at 98 North Ocean Blvd. Call the Spanish Galleon at (843) 249-1436.

Pirate’s Cove

The building was a bowling alley during the ‘50s, and owner Milford Powell had a job setting pins by hand when he was 11 years old. It has participated in SOS events since it reopened its doors as a refurbished night club in 1995, and some kind of music—beach or otherwise—rocks the hall every night, either with live bands or DJs. It’s right at that intersection where all the shag clubs are, at 205 Main St., (843) 249-8942.

Other music/dance venues

Once you leave the immediate vicinity of Main Street and Ocean Boulevard, you might have to learn some new dance steps. A lot of tourists show up in Grand Strand clubs with their own moods and moves, and they might come from a part of the world that thinks the shag was a popular 1960s haircut. All up and down the coast nightclubs play the hot tunes that move and shake the dance floor, or concert halls play to full-capacity crowds, or a bit of a floor show goes along with the song and dance.

Alabama Theater

A couple spots in town devote themselves to of the country rock band Alabama, mega stars throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. The band got its start in Myrtle Beach, technically at The Bowery, which is another Alabama-themed nightspot. After the band left Fort Payne, Alabama to come to Myrtle Beach, they hit the national charts in 1980. The Alabama Theater offers a blend of music, dance and special effects, everything from country, gospel, Broadway, pop and rock. It’s all geared to good, clean family entertainment, with the occasional stand-up comic thrown in for variety. Visit 4750 Highway 17 South or call the box office at 843-272-1111.

The Bowery

It calls itself a honky-tonk and it’s been playing tunes and serving beer since 1944. According to song and legend, supergroup Alabama got its start at The Bowery, and played seven summers before moving onto the national charts in 1980. One of the band’s greatest hits was inspired by this experience, “Dancin’, Shaggin’ on the Boulevard.”

Other claims to fame are commemorated on the premises. One of the waiters, Scuba Osborne, holds a Guinness world record for carrying 34 mugs of beer without a tray. A former waiter, Don’t Cry Joe, held a Guinness record for dancing 5,295 consecutive hours. Hey, it’s where memories are made, and it’s right on the ocean at 110 9th Ave. North, 1-800-8-BOWERY.

The Carolina Opry Theater

Choose from four entertainment experiences: The Carolina Opry, Good Vibrations, The Carolina Opry Christmas Special, and LIGHT Laser Extravaganza. The Carolina Opry is the offspring of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, and television audiences might relate it to the old variety show “HeeHaw,” a blend of down-home music, dance and comedy. Good Vibrations evokes the music of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s to recall our misspent youth. The Carolina Opry Christmas Special is “shamelessly sentimental” and begins in early November. The laser show allows you to choose your own music, classic rock, family fun, praise, holiday, Beatles, Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, and ignites your selection with a blaze of color and movement. Visit 8901-A Business 17 North, or call 1-800-843-6779.

Celebrations

At this Broadway at the Beach mega-complex you’ll get four clubs for one cover charge: Malibu’s Surf Bar, Froggy Bottomz, Club Boca and Broadway Louie’s. Club Boca has the biggest emphasis on dancing, with mainstream, Latin, techno and hip-hop in the Big City styles of Miami and Vegas, a DJ running the board and a $50,000 laser light show Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Celebrations is between 21st Avenue North and 29th Avenue North on the Highway 17 Bypass. Call (843) 444-3500.

Creek Ratz

On the Marsh Walk at Murrell’s Inlet waterfront, you can go “Shagging on the Creek” every Sunday afternoon with a DJ spinning the beach music classics. Most nights of the week a live band kicks in around 6 or 7 p.m. after the dinner dishes have been cleared away. There’s a kids corner, a few TVs, and happy hour every day from 4 to 6 p.m. The place has a rustic, nautical feel, and some patrons arrive by boat and tie up at the dock. Visit 4065 US Business 17 in Murrell’s Inlet, (843) 357-2891.

Crocodile Rocks

Mainly the place is a piano bar and most likely you’ll wind up singing rather than dancing. Typically it’s two dueling pianos and a lot of audience participation, particularly in the song selection process. Find the musical hilarity at Broadway at the Beach, 1320 Celebrity Circle, (843) 444-2096.

Dead Dog Saloon

Most of the charm of the Dead Dog is its relatively remote setting on the Marsh Walk on the Murrell’s Inlet waterfront, in the shade of an ancient live oak tree. The outdoor bar is where the live bands usually perform, weather permitting, and shore birds watch the dancing. Leave the big city lights behind to join the party at 4079 US Business 17 in Murrell’s Inlet, (843) 651-0664.

House of Blues

Built to resemble a Southern farmhouse with adjoining tobacco barn, the music hall is sheathed in authentic tin stripped from a real Southern farmhouse and barn. It keeps a crazy quilt on the wall and a box of Mississippi delta mud beneath the stage. Most nights a live band is getting down and funky, but sometimes it can be something like a murder/mystery dinner theater or a stand-up comic. Go to 4640 Highway 17 South in Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach or call (843) 272-3000.

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville

Parrot Heads unite in the Tiki Room, or aboard the Euphoria docked outside, or in Key West, Orlando, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Mohegan Sun, Biloxi, Panama City Beach, Jamaica and Cancun. They dance the night away to the live bands that play nightly, and that probably means ruffling a few parrot feathers. Find your perch at Broadway at the Beach, 1114 Celebrity Circle, (843) 448-5455.

Legends in Concert

Some of these impersonators are improvements on the originals. And where else can you see Elvis in concert on the same ticket with Madonna, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and the Temptations. This show has toured for more than 20 years, picking up new celebrity impersonators all along the way. Go to 2925 Hollywood Drive (near Planet Hollywood) or call for ticket information at 843-238-7827.

Planet Hollywood

Enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of Acapulco, Bali, Cancun, Disneyland Paris, Dubai, Guam, India, Jakarta, Kuwait, Las Vegas, London, Myrtle Beach, New York, Niagara Falls, Orlando and Riyadh. They’re all at 2915 Hollywood Drive, (843) 448-7827.

Revolutions

This is another Broadway at the Beach destination, purportedly a “retro” dance club. That distinction is not strictly applied, so that in this case they mean it’s a mix of old and new, and you’re just as likely to get Lady GaGa as Led Zeppelin. Check it out at 1320 Celebrity Circle, or call (843) 444-8032.

Senor Frogs

It looks like Kermit’s Hispanic cousin got his “green” card. Senor Frogs is an extremely silly place in Broadway at the Beach with nightly entertainment that includes zany contests, prizes, jello shots, conga lines, a DJ, an MC, and a reggae band. Hop on over to 1304 Celebrity Circle, (843) 444-5506.

Time Out

Dancing with DJ Mackel is a favorite here, before and after any scheduled event. The club is gay owned and operated, with happy hour starting at 5 p.m. daily and a different entertainment theme every night. Visit at the corner of Oak Street and 8th Avenue, 520 8th Avenue North, in North Myrtle Beach, or call (843) 448-1180.

Reference

Much of the shag dance information in this article is derived from Bo Bryan’s “Shag: The Legendary Dance of the South,” published by Foundation Books for Fast Dance, Inc., Beaufort, SC, 1995.