Motown sounds with ‘beach music beat’ arrived in 1959

Carolina beach music changed dramatically in 1959, welcoming to the dance floor the new soul music sounds coming out of Detroit, Mich., generated at a new record studio, Motown Records.

William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. was 17 when he met the entrepreneurial Berry Gordy Jr., who had made a little money writing songs for Jackie Wilson, including “Lonely Teardrops.” Gordy invested his earnings and cash contributions from family members to create a new record company.

 Impressed by Robinson’s budding talent and a relentless work ethic, Gordy signed Robinson and the Miracles to a recording contract. Their first hit together was “Shop Around” in 1960. It became Motown’s first record to sell more than 1 million copies.

 

That was the beginning of a long friendship as well as a successful business relationship between the two Detroit natives. In the first 10 years alone, Robinson produced 26 “top-40” hits with the Miracles as the group’s lead singer, chief songwriter and producer.

 

The cultural implications that emanated from Motown were monumental, according to Dr. Kip Lornell, author and music history instructor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He said that Motown “desegregated the radio dial,” accomplishing across the country something that “beach music did in a two-state area” – the Carolinas – beginning in the mid-1940s.

The movement of making rhythm and blues (R&B) music universal as a tool to dissolve racial barriers in music halls originated with Carolina beach music.

Tom Poland of Columbia, S.C., a freelance journalist, reported that the 1945 dance sessions at the Crystal Club at White Lake in Bladen County, N.C., near Elizabethtown, were fully integrated. Harry Driver of Dunn, N.C., acclaimed to be the “father of shag dancing,” told Poland:

“We were totally integrated; the blacks and whites had nothing in our minds that made us think we were different. We loved music, we loved dancing and that was the common bond between us.”

Back at Motown Records, Smokey Robinson took on greater responsibilities. Gordy hired him to write and produce songs for other Motown performers. Robinson responded by penning soul music hits for Mary Wells, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Marvelettes, The Supremes and Marvin Gaye.

 

Scads of Motown-style tunes in the 1960s and ’70s “crossed over” to reach acclaim as beach music classics. Nine songs from artists with Motown heritage are included in the “All Time Beach Music Top 100” listing compiled by the deejays at 97.9 The Surf, a beach music radio station in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Here are the Motown artists mentioned and their songs:

The Temptations – “My Girl” #11.

Marvin Gaye – “Come Get to This” #43.

Barbara Lewis – “Hello Stranger” #49 and “Think a Little Sugar” #78.

Jr. Walker and the All Stars – “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) #55. (Shown below.)

The Four Tops – “I Just Can’t Get You Out of My Mind #59 and “When She Was My Girl” #79. 

Mary Wells – “My Guy” #80.

Otis Redding – “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” #98. (He is shown below.)

Author Rosecrans Baldwin, who contributed an article on Carolina beach music to Our State magazine in 2012, agrees that Barbara Lewis is a genuine beach music legend. His personal favorite from Barbara Lewis is “Baby, I’m Yours.”

 “‘Baby, I’m Yours’ will still affect me when I’m 90,” Baldwin said. Here’s a bit of it:

 Baby, I’m yours / Till the stars fall from the sky… / Till the rivers all run dry… / Till the poets run out of rhyme / Baby, I’m yours.