DANCING IN THE STREET

Dancing In the Street

The beat in the street began in L.A. in the early sixties at the beatnik beach scene in Marina Del Rey and east up Slauson Street, where the musicians gathered outside to play jazzy soulful rock and the neighbors created a new dance, and spreading across America, people began dancing in the street. They were doing it to the Motown sound in Detroit, shuffling in Baltimore and D.C., rockin’ in the city of Chicago and the village of New York, and street danced every time I been to New Orleans; and in Philly, for a week at the Tower Theatre I remember the Grateful Dead doing “Dancing in The Street” and lit up the floor with contagious energy each night. They’ve been playin’ this song since 1966. This sound first came on the radio in 1964 recorded by Martha and the Vandellas. The year before, Round Robin, Darlene Love, The Turtles & others were bringing new sounds & creating new steps in the streets of south L.A. When I first moved to California in 1971 I lived in Redondo Beach, about a dozen miles south of this scene. And in the decade before when it was happening, I was a teenager with his ear glued to my radio each day. After school I’d head upstairs to the attic over the garage and listen to the latest old and new songs & everyday I would make up my own top ten favorite songs of the day. When I heard “Kick That Little Foot Sally Ann” it immediately made my top ten. I saw Round Robin, who recorded this song, on the Lloyd Thaxton show on TV, with singers & sax, doing a dance they called The Slauson. I went out and bought the 45 record. The flip side has an instrumental “Slauson Party”. I remember this dance because of the little kick of the choreographed line, while Round Robin sang and snapped his fingers. In my later teenage years I was introduced to a song and dance I really liked, “Electric Slide” at a wedding, and it had some similar steps. Today you find much of the hip hop sound in these same neighborhood streets, and when crossing Crenshaw and Slauson streets in L.A., folks in modern day, you tubers and all, call the slauson the salsa now.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do the slauson Sally Ann.

Well I saw Sally at the party
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
A-looking lonely as can be
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
She said, I don’t know how to slauson
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
I said, get up from that chair and follow me.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that slauson Sally Ann.

Well Sally got up on the dance floor.
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
By the second dance she was a-doing fine.
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
And now they call her queen of the slauson
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
You can’t get her out of that slauson line.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that slauson Sally Ann.
(Instrumental break)
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that slauson Sally Ann.