THE LAST 45

Since using the link below, my friend Patty and I have been sharing stories about different songs from our youth. The following is a note from her about "THE STROLL".

OK. Joey, Casey [grandkids] and I just did The Stroll. Joey liked going down the middle.

Here is my best Stroll story: all of the kids used to gather in the gym in the mornings until school started. The boys would shoot hoops, and the girls would dance. However, whenever The Stroll came up, they would drop the basketballs and come running over to dance with us. Well, there we all were in our two lines (about 40 kids), and as we are dancing, I looked over at the other line to see who my partner would be to dance down the middle. Well, surprise, surprise, there stood one of the few black guys in our school and a mammoth guy he was (Allister Dowdell). I briefly thought, "What the heck am I going to do now?" I could tell by Allister's facethat he was thinking the very same thing. As our turn came, we both made the decision to "dance our asses off" down the center of that line. As I remember we got a little ovation, which was heard by my boyfriend Raymond (who didn't dance). The look he gave me wasn't the friendliest look I ever got, but he should have learned how to dance!

To see the link, click here.




The dance was born before the song, and had it not been for an idea of American Bandstand's Dick Clark, the song may never have been. Dick noticed the kids were "line dancing" to a song by Chuck Willis called "C.C. Rider", and he needed more musical material than just the one song and ultimately a few others for the kids to do this dance. He enlisted the aid of singer Brook Benton who put pen to Dick's idea, and "The Stroll" was born. The Diamonds were given the opportunity to record this not long after their hit of "Little Darlin", and the song shot to #4 in January of 1958.