The Fred Shuffle

The Fred Shuffle

 

Have you ever felt like someone has stolen one of your creations and made a fortune off of it? This is exactly how my friend Gary and I felt, but I’m getting ahead of the story.

 

The Fred Shuffle

 

In 1992, when we were clog dancing in national competition in Branson. Missouri, Gary and I were messing around out in front of our motel room and we started choreographing a country line dance to “Keep Your Hands To Yourself”. We finished the dance and found you could do it to any moderately fast eight beat song. We named the dance the “Fred Shuffle”. When the competition was over, we decided to go out and celebrate at a place we could take all the kids with us. We ended up at a night spot called B. T. Bones where we had dinner and began our celebration. There was a good band there that night and after a couple of hours, we were feeling pretty good. Gary, Ellis, Fred and I grabbed the checkered cloth napkins off the table and put them on our heads as dew rags. When the band played a good fast eight beat song, we hit the dance floor and did the “Fred Shuffle”. The whole place went berserk and everyone in the place was hollering and yelling cheering us on. After that night, we decided to make B. T. Bones our celebration place every time we came to Branson. For five or six years after that we did the Fred Shuffle in B.T. Bones when we came to town. We also started doing the dance at every other public place we went to. In 1995, when the Macarena Dance came out, we noticed that the dance looked surprisingly like the Fred Shuffle and we figured someone had videoed our dance in Branson and adapted it to the Macarena. They likely made a fortune off a dance we scratched out in ten minutes in a parking lot.

I still have a couple of those checkered dew rags from those times. You seniors can find a lot of fun ways to enjoy your life if you just find some friends and start something fun.

 

Bill, Fred, Gary, and Ellis doing the Fred Shuffle at B. T. Bones in Branson, Missouri

 

Carl, Bill, Fred, Gary, and Justin doing the Fred Shuffle at B. T. Bones on another occasion.

 

Part of the Country Rhythm clog competition team and the bull at B. T Bones on another trip.

 

Thanks for reading The Fred Shuffle,

Hawg Jaw Bill