Put your shaggin’ shoes on for the third annual Charleston Beach Music & Shag Festival Aug. 21 - 24! Shown: Red Cottle of the Tams (Photo by Hany Hosny).
By Dariel Bendin
Beach music fans, it’s time to circle the dates on your calendar, order your tickets and shine up your ride for the third annual Charleston Beach Music & Shag Festival.
Here’s the scheduled lineup: Angel Rissoff and his Nu Soul Stew Band will kick off Thursday night, Aug. 21 at J.B. Pivots Beach Club. You won’t want to miss this Bronx soul singer belting out hits like Harlem Hit Parade,” Jitterbop” and more! (DJ Butch Halpin will be spinning tunes).
Friday night, also at Pivots, get ready for Freshwater, the new trio with BobbySimmons on keys and vocals; Tony Kennedy on sax and vocals; and Rhonda McDaniel on keys and vocals. If you don’t have Rhonda’s new CD, this is a great chance to pick one up. One of my favorite DJs, PatPatterson, will be on hand, too.
Get your juices running Saturday morning with Ray Scott as he broadcasts his Top 40 Countdown live from the Citadel Alumni House. And be sure to check out the free shag lessons at 11.
The Fabulous Shades hit the stage at noon. If you wanna be at the beach, don’t forget your Shades. Billy Scott & the Prophets should be starting about 1:30. If anyone parties heartier than Billy Scott, I don’t know who it is. This will be a super show!
Wallstreet goes on at 3 p.m. Now, if you were at the Festival last year, you already know that these boys from New Jersey blew us all away. If you like Tower of Power, you’ll love this group. The legendary Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs will perform at 4:30 p.m. Angel Rissoff and his band go on at 6 p.m, and the mighty Tams start at 7:30 p.m.
If you have any energy left, the party heads back to Pivots at 9 p.m., and then get ready to start all over again!
Sunday morning, back at the Citadel Alumni House, grab some free shag lessons with your coffee at 11 a.m.
The happenin' Holiday Band starts the entertainment off at noon. The crowd-pleasin' Sea-Cruz follows at 1:30-ish. Charleston’s own Rick Strickland Band has the 3 p.m. slot; and Johnny Rawls Blues Band goes on at 4:30. You don't want to miss Johnny — especially if you like your blues sexy, sultry and struttin'. This guy's a mess 'o' fun. And be sure to check out his brand new CD, "Red Cadillac."
Johnny Rawls is a tough act to follow. But my guess is that Jim Quick & Coastline are up for it, 6 p.m. Then, look for the fantastic Fantastic Shakers to close the show. They go on at 7 p.m. and, then at 9 p.m, there will be more partying at Pivots.
If You Want To Go
J. B. Pivots is located at 1662 Savannah Hwy in Charleston. For information, call 843-571-3668, or log onto the website at pivotsbeachclub.com. Tickets for Thursday or Friday night cost $15 each, or a two-day ticket for both costs $25. Friday or Saturday tickets are $30 each or a weekend ticket for both days costs $50. After-party tickets for Saturday and Sunday nights at Pivots are $5.
A partial list of sponsors for this nonprofit event include Coast Magazine and Alternatives NewsMagazine, J.B. Pivots, Best Western Charleston Downtown, 94.9 the Surf, John FM 104.9 and West Of Magazine.
I first met Jim Allen a little over a year ago at Captain Poo's on the Waterway in Little River. He was with his wife, Betty, who, it turns out, works with my sister. So we sat around, havin' some good rowdy fun watching Donny Trexler up on the bar and listening to Calabash Flash berate poor Jimmy Buffet who thinks Paradise is somewhere way south of here.
The next time I ran into Jim was at HOTO's in Cherry Grove, and he had a mighty fine camera in his hand. It belonged to his friend Laura Jean, who owns a karaoke bar in Rock Hill. Well, Jim is experimenting with this pricey gadget, and he’s composing some very cool photographs.
Fast forward a few weeks, it's the beginning of August, Sunday at HOTO's, Jim Quick & Coastline are playing. I've been working on a feature story to run in Coast and Alternatives – about the Charleston Beach Music & Shag Festival. Time's getting close, and I don't have an image for the cover yet. So, I think, Coastline is playing the festival ... and Jim Quick is always good for some crazy antics; maybe I can get a decent shot of these bad boys.
But wait, there's Jim Allen sporting his very own, brand new Nikon D70 digital camera. To make a long story short, Jim's shot came out a whole lot better than mine, and that's what wound up on the cover of Coast Magazine.
Right after that, Jim hooked up with Jeff Landrum of Ocean Drive Happens, and now uploads many of his crowd and band shots to www.oceandrivehappens, where they are available for purchase. He also works with a growing list of Ocean Drive Happens clients that include Fat Harold's, HOTO's, Captain Poo's, Deckerz, Wango Tango, Printing By Designs, Classic Air Ventures and many more.
"People go to the website once they get home," Jim says, "They find themselves, and we've sent photos to the Bahamas, California, all over the place."
Jim's most recent shots have been taken hundreds of feet in the air at speeds of 180 miles per hour. "I’ve been going up with Phil from Classic Air in his 1941 Model Waco, and man, I love it! I can't wait to do it again. We're moving so fast, I have to anticipate. I focus ahead of the plane. Right now, we're working on a deal with a helicopter."
Some of his most popular aerial shots are views that include the horseshoe in North Myrtle Beach; the O.D. Resort, Deckerz, Two Blondes on the Beach and Fat Harold's on Main Street; HOTO's, the pier and the new Prince Resort in Cherry Grove; and Captain Poo's at Anchor Marina. His favorite, though, is the new Tilghman Resort next to HOTO's.
Although not a professional photographer, Jim has been working with cameras for years. He got his first one, a 35mm Nikon EM, back in 1981 shortly after he and Betty had moved to Texas. He started off snapping pics of the late model sportsman's cars and drivers at the Big H Motor Speedway dirt track in Houston.
After the couple moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina to be closer to family, they started hanging out at Country City USA. There they got to know folks like Randy Travis, Mark Chestnut, Trace Atkins and other stars. And Jim photographed them all.
"I got a shot of a teenage Tanya Tucker in KMart when she released her first record." Jim told me, "Then when she came to Cowboy Joe's about 1990, I showed the photo to her son. He took it and showed it to her, and then came and brought us backstage to meet her. We know her now."
Jim and Betty moved to Little River in 2005 after vacationing at the beach for most of their lives. "So we've been listening to beach music for a long time," Jim explained.
Join in as the South Carolina State Park Service celebrates its 75th anniversary. (Photo courtesy of SCPRT, DiscoverSouthCarolina.com)
From SCPRT
The South Carolina State Park Service is celebrating its 75th anniversary, with events from the mountains to the sea … and online.
The anniversary celebration began on April 4 with a ceremony on the steps of Cheraw Town Hall re-enacted the 1934 deed transfer for the land that would become Cheraw State Park. The community’s citizens had purchased the land and donated it to the state, following up on enabling legislation in 1933 that called for the creation of “state forest parks.”
Part of a nationwide movement, the Cheraw acreage was the first land secured for a state park in South Carolina. The first park to open its gates here was Myrtle Beach on July 1, 1936. More followed in quick succession, built by the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and in 1937, the first year records were kept, 387,000 people visited South Carolina’s state parks.
Here’s how the S.C. Forestry Commission defined a state park as the first were being created: “An area of land possessing unusual natural beauty, historical interest, educational value, or recreational importance … to be preserved for the use of the people in securing wholesome recreation and education.”
That vision has taken decades to come to complete fruition, as the first parks focused primarily on recreation for people and restoration of badly eroded farmland into woodlands. That focus expanded into preservation of natural and cultural resources such as deep verdant mountain forest, pine hills and wetlands and on to the beaches. As for the cultural resources, historic sites such as the state’s founding settlement at Charleston came under Park Service control, as have three historic plantation homes that capture the iconic spirit and history of the South.
Today, the S.C. State Park Service is part of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism and operates 47 properties comprising nearly 90,000 acres of diverse landscape. Approximately 7 million visitors a year come to the parks to picnic and hike and stay in the more than 200 cabins and villas and 3,000 campsites. They also visit nature centers and living history programs and gain an appreciation of South Carolina’s natural and cultural history with hands-on classes and programs led by interpretive rangers, historians and archaeologists.
South Carolina is one of only two states in the country where the state parks and state tourism efforts are the responsibility of the same agency – in this case, SCPRT – and this has helped the parks gain a unique vibrancy, the agency’s chief executive said. For instance, it operates as a modern business, with a centralized reservation system that has helped the system become one of the most self-sufficient in the country.
“We have a unique state park system of unusual variety and inestimable value to the people of South Carolina and beyond,” said S.C. State Park Service Director Phil Gaines.
“Whether it’s conserving unique habitats such as a blackwater Carolina bay or a Blue Ridge mountain cove, preserving and interpreting irreplaceable markers of our state’s history such as Charles Towne Landing, plantation homes and battle field sites, or providing stewardship of recreational access for families to beaches, woodlands and major reservoirs, South Carolina’s state parks are an indelible part of the daily life of the Palmetto State,” Gaines said.
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