Goddamn I love the blues, and when it is the right fast tempo, boogie blues of which this song falls under. I bought this album on Beale Street down in Memphis, home of The King, B.B. King and a whole other host of kings of music. I walked into the store and this song was playing, there was a huge black woman behind the counter getting down and her and I shagged right there in the middle of the floor with everyone watching. Before you repel in disgust know that someone of that size is not really my type and that Carolina Shag is not a movie you borrowed from a buddy in college, it is a dance.
However it is the beauty of this type of music in which a white dude from the Northeast can get down with a greasy ole southern woman spontaneously in some random music store. There aren't too many things I dig about the south but music like this and their good old time let's cut a rug in the middle of the street attitude is definitely one of those things. For those who are uninitiated when one heads south of the Mason Dixon line things get a little stuffier in some aspects while at the same time loosen up in others, one of them being dancing. Not the type of dancing where a Middle Eastern dude with a Louis Vuitton print shirt, tons of gold and Versace sunglasses on at four in the morning, hopped up on blow is grinding his hard on into your ass (or so I've heard from female customers of various clubs here in Manhattan) for hours upon end without invitation. I'm a talking 'bout hey sugar you are looking sweet tonight, as I offer her a hand and we get down in an innocent manner with a whole ton of sexual tension shoved deep down inside in the proper southern way.
Down there I remember dancing for hours with friend's girls to Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and songs just like this, other times they were my own. It was an awakening to me because everywhere I have ever lived up until that point dancing was pretty much overtly sexual grinding. My vote is save the grinding for when the clothes are off when one can really get down to business, leave the real dancing to the liquid, fluttering sound of the piano on this song, the catchy guitar riffs and the three hundred pound sweaty woman singing along side for the dance and then go home to some Barry White or Curtis Mayfield...maybe even some slow John Lee Hooker.
We always have an prevalence to categorize songs and dancing like this as innocent acts from a bygone ear. As for myself I half heartily agree, what I'm talking about here is the foreplay for a very interesting night. There would be no excitement for Christmas if you didn't stay up all night the evening prior, no humorous punchline if the straight lines weren't set up, and no four in the morning-hot sweaty southern nights that take your breath away and add years to your life if there weren't songs and dancing like this. Let's try to leave dancing to dancing, kick out that Middle Eastern douche bag and just have fun, the remainder of the night will eventually fall into place.
Next time, if ever, you are down in Memphis take a meander down to Beale Street, yea it is a little cheesy and a little whored out, but skip the clubs and hit up the little music store where I purchased this CD, you'll find it, and while you are at it head down to Savannah, Tuscaloosa and yes even La Grange...there's some good ole, fine timing music down there with some loose women when you get them in the right frame of mind, I am confident you'll find yourself satisfied even if you wake up the next day in your hotel room alone after dancing the night away with someone who can play linebacker for the Vols.
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