St. Louis Jitterbug!

Jim & Lorraine Byrnes at Club Imperial, doing St. louis style 'Jitterbug' if you wach closely thier swing-out's(they call them Lindy's) are over rotated an extra 180 degrees! They are also doing St. louis Shag. (St. Louis Shag has it's roots in 20's Charleston and is unique to St. louis. in St. louis 'old timers' just call it 'Shag' as they didn't do nor did they know of Collegiate Shag.)

These guys were some of the best 'Swing Dancers' in St. louis and won 100+ dance contests in St.Louis & Chicago all through the 50's. Jim has a great photograph of himself from 1938...he's at a 'Jiterbug' contest in a pair of Zoot Suit style slacks! They would get thier clothes (& shoes!) custom made back then.

This footage was filmed at Club Imperial in the 1970's

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• St.
• Louis
• Shag
• Swing
• Dance
• Lindy
• Hop
• Jitterbug
• R'n'R
• ike
• turner
• imperial

[RhythmJunkie]

R.I.P. Jim....you will be missed.

[dingdeb1]

I did not know know jim died. they were my favorite jitterbug couple to watch. i used to judge some of the various dance contests in the 70s, always voted for them. through the years i'd run into them here and...so sorry.

[snicul]

wow, I'm from st. louis and had no idea bout its history and that we even has stuff like that. In the hip hop clubs u can see a ghetto version of tht shuffle

[rmbb10]

Another nice clip.