"S” is for Shag. State Dance. The “Shag” is southern swing tempered by the influences of jazz, blues, and gospel music. Few agree on its exact origins. Some legendary white dancers credit its modern form to a taboo collaboration with African Americans that occurred in segregated South Carolina in the 1940s. White jitterbugs found that the emerging so-called race music [rhythm and blues] slowed and smoothed their movements. The shag, commented one veteran dancer, is the jitterbug on Quaaludes. There is general agreement, however, that a key site in the development of the shag was a black Myrtle Beach nightclub owned by Charlie Fitzgerald. Today there are dozens of shag clubs across the South and thousands converge each year to dance in North Myrtle Beach. In 1984, the shag became South Carolina’s official state dance.
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.