Posted by Steve Green on August 27, 2008 at 14:34:33:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Can you remember DANCE CRAZE SONGS of the 60's posted by Richie Failla on August 27, 2008 at 12:09:34:
At basement parties (and even on front stoops in the daytime), the gals always seemed to know what they were doing with that dance craze stuff. A few of the guys tried. We must've looked like primitive versions of the dancers that Deiter brought out to end his SNL bit 'Sprockets'. A lot of us kids had been raised on our folks' polkas and waltzes. That wouldn't have prepared us for the Monster Mash.
The Mashed Potato was the most common 'new' one I remember being performed, if that's the word, at the basement parties, though. And some of Bobby Rydell's stuff was good for trying out a lindy.
One day, though, broad daylight, to the directions of 'Bird Dance Beat' playing off a phonograph, one of the gawky guys in the crowd tried to follow the lyrics. I mean, this honky was shaking his shoulders and moving his feet, flopping his arms and moving his hands -- just like the song ordered. It might have been a more convincing 'keeper' in our crowd's small repertoire of dances if he had a partner. But all available partners were doubled over in mirth.