August 22nd, 2005

Filed under:
Mixed Bag
6 Comments »

Who Invented Cage Dancing?

Earlier today I was listening to Blue Rodeo’s great, groovy cover of Go Go Round by Gordon Lightfoot. One verse goes:

In her cage she danced for him,
although a hundred eyes were turned her way
And before the set was through he knew
She would be his loved one

All sexism aside for a moment, I got to wondering who invented the disco cage, and where the trend started? I see some smarmy guy in LA in 1967 going “hey, I’ve got a funky notion, dude. Let’s put the gogo girls in cages!” I did a little searching, but came up empty. Anyone have more luck? I think I’m going to make it a personal mission to uncover the origins of cage dancing. Why, I may even start a Wikipedia article on the subject.

Comments: 6 Responses so far

alexis
August 22nd, 2005
4:48 pm

Completely unrelated, but to amuse my friends, I did a little cage dance in a bar in Mongolia.

Not too many people can say that :)

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jo
August 22nd, 2005
5:01 pm

acording to: http://www.rockandrollroadmap.com/whiskey.html

and: http://www.soulgeneration.co.uk/tittyshakers.htm
(which is not perverse, despite the name)

it appears the phenomenon originated at the Whiskey A-Go-Go. I don’t know anything about Johnny Rivers and his smarminess rating but he seems to have been involved.

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Darren
August 22nd, 2005
5:13 pm

Sweet, nice work, Jo. I’ve added some info to my nascent article from those pages.

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RichardK
August 23rd, 2005
12:36 am

As a great fan of Blue Rodeo, I’m stumped as to what album that song is on. You sure it’s BR?

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RichardK
August 23rd, 2005
12:45 am

After a bit of searching, I found the album, a Gordon Lightfoot tribute album. Thanks for bringing up BR in your blog. Who’s your fav Canadian Band? My guess is Cowboy Junkies? Didn’t I go to CJ concert with your bro? I can remember the guitarist (lead singer’s brother?) sitting the whole time while playing on stage.

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Darren
August 23rd, 2005
8:39 am

Indeed, the Cowboy Junkies are my favourite band, and have been for years. That’s kind of Michael Timmons’s thing–he always sits down.

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