The DANCIN ROOM at Cagney's

Cagney’s DANCIN ROOM, a 125-seat dance club, was added 4-yrs after Cagney’s opened. For the next 20-some years, the classy joint rocked like it did last Friday. Customers would come for dinner and stay til 2am on Fridays and 12pm on Saturdays (liquor laws wouldn’t allow alcohol after midnight- (drinking on Sundays would send a Baptist straight to hell). Our first DJ was Vanna White’s brother Chip. For the next 15 years, our DJ was Chip Bellamy. 

On the rare occasion when I had to fill in, I always had my mental lineup of some fabulous boogie and shag 45s. Monster danceable favorites like…

One Mint Julep, Honky Tonk, One Scotch-One Bourbon, Flamingo, Fever, Green Eyes, Just a GigoloLet the Good Times Roll, Nip Sip, Mary Lou, Sixty Minute Man, Temptation, I Got Loaded, Kansas City, White Cliffs of Dover & Thank You John…In between I’d slip in a few romancers like At Last and Since I Met You Baby. Then I’d spin in a few fast shags like Flip Flop & Fly, Chicken Shack Boogie or Safronia B for the limber of leg showoffs. 

But it was never good enough.  Sure as a pig’s ass is pork, some patent-leather shoed dude, fake Rolex, bombed on Blatz in a Nehru suit, shirt unbuttoned down to his hairy navel, gold sailfish necklace, would stroll up and say, “Hey sport kin you play something me and the lady kin dance to?”