‘Beach music’ spreads to the middle of nowhere

If one is searching for the best “Carolina Beach Music” band of all time, all roads may lead to Williams Lake in rural Sampson County, N.C. If you can find Spivey’s Corner, you’re getting warm and are almost there. 

Rural families started going to Williams Lake to swim and picnic in 1932. The property belonged to Clayton and Lillian Williams. 

“In 1936, a jukebox was hooked up to a generator,” reported Kent Wrench, a regular contributor to the Sampson Independent newspaper. The good times rolled every year from Easter through Labor Day, on through the 1940s, the ‘50s and into the ‘60s. 

Robert Honeycutt, who had been assisting Clayton Williams in running the operation, took over management responsibilities in 1965, at age 22. Honeycutt sensed change in the wind. Kids in wanted to dance to music from live bands, not jukeboxes. 

He took a gamble by enlarging the pavilion and building a bandstand. The place became “The Williams Lake Dance Club.”

 

Now, Williams Lake is officially located on the map in the “middle of the middle of nowhere,” but it still became the “center of the shag dancing universe,” wrote author Bob Boan. 

The first live band to come and play at Williams Lake on April 21, 1965, was Bob Collins and The Fabulous Five from Greensboro. Mary Lemuel Blalock of Dunn took notes. She put the group in her “top three” favorite North Carolina bands to play at the lake. 

Blalock’s favorite local group was Gene Barbour and The Cavaliers from her hometown of Dunn. The band later became the Men of Distinction. She also liked Ken Hesler and The Tassels from Raleigh, which later became known as The Pieces of Eight. 

Neal Alan Furr of Raleigh, a beach music historian, made a tally of the extraordinary talented artists who performed at Williams Lake. Here’s his partial list: 

The Tams, The Embers, Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs, Mary Wells, The Showmen, The Catalinas, The O’Kaysions, Junior Walker & The All Stars, The Drifters, The Platters, Major Lance, Eddie Floyd, The Coasters, The Chiffons, Martha Reaves and the Vandellas, Barbara Lewis, Billy Stewart and Jackie Wilson.

The Mighty Tams 

“I don’t think we appreciated what we had,” Honeycutt once laughingly told a reporter. “We got used to seeing The Tams and Maurice Williams. Who would’ve ever thought that Jackie Wilson would play out here in the woods of Sampson County, or The Platters? It was a heck of a lineup. We just didn’t realize – and we didn’t think to take pictures.” 

To be fair and balanced…there were other shaggin’ hot spots in eastern North Carolina. 

One that rivaled Williams Lake to some degree was at Lake Artesia, also in Sampson County, about 25 miles to the east. It was more of a pond than a lake. Patrons who toted coolers of icy-cold brewskis fondly referred to the place as “Lake Amnesia.” 

The Town of Faison, in Duplin County, had a dance hall as early as 1960, when the C. P. Ellis Produce Warehouse hosted bands such as Ulysses Hardy and The Mighty Blue Notes from Kinston. Mary Lemuel Blalock danced there, too. 

She said that one of the Blue Notes musicians who performed in the “pickle packing shed” was a 15-year-old saxophonist. He would later go on to play with James Brown and become one of the most eminent national and international Jazz and R&B artists of all time – Maceo Parker. 

The search for America’s best beach music band is a winding road that leads to curious places. We’re getting there.