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What is Beach Music?
Have you tried to answer this question to people not From around here. “What is Beach Music?”
First I will say.. I am a FAN of the Beach Boys. I have listened to their music all my life and seen them in concert on several occasions. I like to see them when they come to the beach.. BUT in the words of General Norman Johnson…. “it ain’t beach music”. Sure a few songs of theirs have hit the Beach Music Radio stations and maybe even a few of them have charted. Typically, when a true beach music fan thinks of beach music they don’t think of the Beach Boys.. unless they are trying to define what Carolina Beach Music is not… I used to love it when General Norman Johnson started his “California Girls” joke prior to singing that song that is probably one of the most famous songs for our industry, “Carolina Girls”.
My Website Analytics
You may ask what brought this up today.. I am a website statistic fanatic. My day ususally starts with looking at tracking reports for several sites. I like to look at analytic reports and see where my traffic is coming from, how much traffic I am getting and what is happening on the website. Today, I had someone come to my BeachMusicOnline website while looking for beach boys radio station. If they tuned in to Shag City USA radio, they would probably be disappointed if they were expecting to hear the Beach Boys, but I am guessing they probably liked what they heard. I love beach music and love the fact I live in North Myrtle Beach, SC.. the city I feel is the center of the beach music universe. if you want to know more about website stats and webpages then >> click here <<
Help Define Beach Music
Have you read my What is Beach Music Page? You could spend hours reading comments left by readers on how they define beach music. There are comments that date back to 2008.
One of my favorite quotes about beach music is from the Late General Norman Johnson
“Musical trends come and go, but for more than fifty years, Beach Music has been as steady as the Atlantic Ocean’s flow to its southeastern beachfronts.”
I miss General Norman Johnson and the Chairmen of the Board. Fortunately their music will live forever.
How many of these do you have?
Aside from the stats, the question remains unanswered. To answer it, you need to talk about r&b/soul music, and the civil rights movement in the south. You have to talk about the dance derived from the jitterbug that morphed into the shag. You have to talk about the music that was not allowed on white radio and the bands that weren’t allowed in white clubs. You have to talk about the white cover bands that attempted to cover the songs as best they could, creating what became known as Beach Music. Yes, Beach music is more than General saying it is not California. All in all, I find that Carolinians are more than unwilling to look at the TRUE origin of the genre, and that leads to the confusion and varying opinions…