It's a beach music weekend!

By Carrie White

Correspondent

"I remember in some of the clubs people would track in sand from the beach onto the hard wooden dance floors, and you could hear the 'swish swish' like sandpaper as they danced."

That's one of the sounds of beach music, described by Bobby Tomlinson, a founding member of The Embers.

Defining it, though, is tricky. It's like R&B, but not exactly. You've probably heard it, even if you didn't know it was beach music.

Beach music, Tomlinson says, started on Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Before - and even after - the Civil Rights Act of 1964, white Southern radio stations generally wouldn't play songs by blacks, including R&B, one of the major predecessors of beach music. Many white audiences were first exposed to black music on North and South Carolina jukeboxes or in Carolina beach clubs that featured black R&B performers and, eventually, white performers playing their take on that music.

"Kids would go to the beach, listen to the jukebox and meet a nice girl, go home, keep thinking about the girl and, by extension, the music," Tomlinson says. The '60s and early '70s witnessed the rise of "beach bands," such as The Embers and Bill Deal and the Rhondels, who played at East Coast beach clubs, including the old Peppermint Beach Club and Rogues Gallery, both in Virginia Beach. Arm-in-arm with the music is the shag, a dance Tomlinson describes as a slowed-down jitterbug.

"What is beach music? You tell me," General Johnson says. "The real definition is that beach music is R&B - R&B with a strong crossover appeal pioneered by Motown. But it's been twisted. Now, you have the shag - and they say if you can't shag, then it isn't beach music. But I want to see anybody shag to Jackie Robinson's 'Higher and Higher.' They'll break an ankle, but that's a beach music classic."

Johnson - his father's name was General, too - has been making records for more than 40 years and is one of the genre's big stars. A Norfolk native, he leads the Chairmen of the Board.

Tomlinson agrees with Johnson's assessment. "In some people's definition, it has to be danceable. I don't agree. I used to dance a lot myself - but not so much anymore!"

Johnson laughs as he recalls how he first started playing beach music when he was with The Showmen.

"A club in Raleigh hired us. We'd never been there before. They talked about us doing beach music, and I thought, 'What are they talking about? What am I going to do?' So we played R&B and 'Let It Stand' and '39-21-46,' which were our hits at the time. They were real popular with the beach music fans, and from that point on we were down there three to four times a week!"

"I don't listen to much other than beach music, R&B and oldies - otherwise it's talk radio," says John Aragona, a Hampton Roads entrepreneur and beach music devotee. "It's just fun. It gets me in a good mood." (Aragona has organized Friday night's Beach Music 2008, a separate event to go along with the Virginia Beach festival.)

Another definition comes from singer/songwriter Maurice Williams: "The lyrics are simple, and it's easy to dance to. It's easy to understand, and it's about love."

Junior high school love led Williams to write the lyrics to "Stay," a staple of the genre.

"Well, there was a young lady. Her brother was supposed to pick her up from my house at 10 p.m. I just wanted her to stay a little bit longer. The next morning I woke up and wrote the song."

"Stay" has been recorded by numerous artists, including the Four Seasons and Jackson Browne, reaching the Billboard Top 20 several times. At 98 seconds, it also has the distinction of being one of the shortest recordings to reach No. 1.

"That was our manager's idea," Williams says. "I had to make it shorter to get more plays on the radio. The shorter it was, the more times it was played. It worked."

He also wrote and recorded "Little Darlin', " which peaked at No. 11 on the R&B charts but did not break into the Billboard Top 40. When the all-white Canadian group The Diamonds recorded it, it went to No. 2 - not bad for a song written by Williams when he was 13.

"It was a good thing for me as a songwriter - and as a performer. They had a larger label with an international distribution. I knew it would be exposed worldwide, and they did a good job with the song.

"When Bill Deal did 'May I' and made it a hit, it was no big thing. I was just glad that anybody covered my songs, especially in the beginning! "

Johnson, who was born in Norfolk in an undisclosed year - "I'm not telling, and nobody knows for sure" - was also writing music in junior high school.

"When I was about 12, a lady took me up to New York and wanted me to perform for her husband, Jesse Stone, who put the 'rock' in rock 'n' roll. He was doing a session with the Drifters - he did all the arrangements - and even white people were calling him 'Mr. Stone.'

"When he did the playback for me, I said, 'Wow!' - and that was the end of me. He told me, 'You can do this.' I went back to Norfolk and wrote some of the worst songs ever written - but I also wrote 'It Will Stand.' "

Johnson calls it "the most important song I wrote." Dick Clark hailed it as "the anthem of rock 'n' roll."

Tomlinson says he is looking forward to flying the beach music flag this weekend.

"We've been playing the festival - and Virginia Beach - for years. I remember playing at Rogue's Gallery in '67 and '68. Virginia Beach is one of our favorite places to play, and playing for the festival is great.

"There are always a lot of people and a lot of old friends - usually it's the first time a lot of people go to the beach for the season. They dance a lot - right there in the sand."

Carrie White, caramine2@aol.com