Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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Once inside, Lomax realized that the rhythm was coming from the shuffling feet of
dancing couples glued together belly to belly, thigh to thigh, with their arms wrapped
y
dragged their feet along the floor, doing a dance called the slow drag. There were other
juke-
the shimmy, and the funky butt, but after midnight it was all about the slow drag.
their feet along its surface, emphasizing the off beat, so that the whole house vibrated like
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The dancers were moving to the music of a man playing guitar
and singing the blues. At his side a young boy was using the floor as a giant rubboarddragging
the head of a broom over the rough wooden floorboards in time to the
sual couples dance called the slow
drag. The slow drag is the earliest known blues partner dance, dating from the early
1900s. Dragging the feet along the floor was a response to the dire warnings of Sanctified
preachers against dancing outside church walls.
Originally it was slave owners who barred African dances from being performed on the
plantations. Africans worked around these prohibitions by shuffling or dragging the feet
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the juba.
African American preachers determined to keep their flock from devilish temptation
perpetuated the ban. Services in Sanctified and Pentecostal churches often included the
high-spirited shuffle dance called a ring shout, but it was danced in a group and involved
shuffling in a circle while praising the Lord and clapping out complex rhythms.
Early on, African American ministers had set down a simple rule to keep their flocks
from straying into the immoral waters of partner dancing- they forbade any dancing that
involved crossing the feet in the style of such licentious European courtship dances as
reels and quadrilles. By gluing their feet to the floor, Saturday night slow drag dancers
while incorporating the
undulating pelvic movements of African dance to dangerous effect.
Songs:
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- Jay McShann
- Scott Joplin
SPO O N F U L
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