Although Carolina beach music is generally a mix of R&B and Southern soul styles with a touch of disco tossed in, it really ends up being anything its practicing artists deliver from the bandstand -- the way anything a horse eats becomes, by definition, what a horse eats. In the end, if it's being played in the summer beach joints in the Carolinas and you can shag to it (the shag being a specific dance style in this case), then it is, by definition, beach music.
Forever Summer, a sampler of both veteran and recent beach music bands, was assembled for North Carolina's KHP Music by
Keith Houston and
Mike Farver, and they've sequenced everything into an easy, warm, and summery vibe. Highlights include
Coastline's "It's Summertime,"
the Rickey Godfrey Band's soulful "Come Home with Me," and a skittering version of
George Gershwin's "Summertime" by
Harry's Band. Everything is bright and pleasant, and it turns out you can dance all night to this stuff.