The History Of The Electric Slide (information & Video) - Pancocojams

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Sunday, February 5, 2012

The History Of The Electric Slide (information & video)

Mickey Mouse, Oct 4, 2012I am so glad that this Promo came out so that I can share it with my fans -snip-This video replaces the same video that was used in this pancocojams post but is no longer available.Total # of views for this video published by "Mickey Mouse" (as of April 10, 2022 at 8:32 AM EDT) - 5,760,963 ****Edited by Azizi Powell Latest Update- August 30, 2025 This pancocojams post provides information about the history of the "Electric Slide" dance. The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and entertainment purposes. All copyrights remain with their owners. Thanks to Bunny Wailer for composing the song "Electric Boogie". Thanks to Marcia Griffiths for her hit song "Electric Boogie". Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube.-snip-Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/02/selected-videos-of-electric-slide.html for Part II of this pancocojam seies entitled "Selected Videos Of The Electric Slide".Click this link for my Zumalayah blog for videos of The Electric Slide In The USA, The Caribbean, And In Africa http://zumalayah.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-electric-slide-in-usa-caribbean-and.html.Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/08/comments-that-ric-silvers-who-is.html for the August 30, 2025 pancocojams post "Comments That Ric Silvers (Who Is Credited As Being The First Choreographer Of The Electric Slide Line Dance) Shared in A 2012 Pancocojams Post On The Electric Slide". **** HISTORY OF "THE ELECTRIC SLIDE" DANCEExcerpt #1 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Griffiths "Marcia' Griffiths started her career in 1964. From 1970 to 1974 she worked together with Bob Andy in the group Bob and Marcia, on the Harry J label. Between 1974 and 1981 she was a member of the I-Threes, a background group, which supported Bob Marley & the Wailers. Her song "Electric Boogie" released in 1976 and re-released in 1989, made the Electric Slide, a line dance, an international dance craze. It reached number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 making it her most successful single. It remains the highest-selling single by a female Reggae singer of all time".****Excerpt #2http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090809/ent/ent1.html'Electric Boogie' strikes after 10 yearsPublished: Sunday | August 9, 2009[Excerpt of an interview with Bunny Wailer, composer of "The Electric Boogie"] "There was this track at the time being played called Electric Avenue (by Eddy Grant). That was the most popular song then. So me sey if me ago think pop, me haffi start smell roun' dem kitchen deh. So you going down Electric Avenue to do what? Because him don't stipulate. So me sey him mus ago do the Electric Boogie. So me jus' start formulate the song," Wailer said. "The song was recorded properly, for we did it good"... Griffiths and Wailer did the harmony vocals. "That song went number one in Jamaica, as a R&B. You know when you attempt something that is not really your territory? But we did it so convincing that it became number one in Jamaica and I think it was number one in Trinidad," he said... That was in 1979, going into 1980... Wailer kept working on his Electric Boogie, while the one done by Marcia Griffiths "jus a sell more and more and more and more and more until I mean, it just buss!". And he says Electric Boogie was recorded yet again with Marcia Griffiths. He finished his album, including Electric Boogie, but says he held back from putting it out so as to not cause interference. Wailer says it looked like the song was about to "become a craze or something", although it had not yet been promoted properly... His Electric Boogie was eventually released, along with a video involving "nuff stuff. I was trying to display how shocking the video should be". "That's the true story behind Electric Boogie. Unpolluted, undefiled, true story of Electric Boogie which has brought about this great dance called the Electric Slide," Bunny Wailer said. Electric Slide put to rhymes Electric Boogie became more than the song itself. The Electric Slide dance is a key motion to the music, but when Wailer wrote about it, the forward and backward step, turn and slick movement to the side wasn't invented. In fact, it would be a decade before someone came up with the moves... Ten years after it was recorded, when Electric Boogie started creating a stir in the US, someone put movement to the music... It really started getting serious now because everybody was just learning this dance, doing this dance. It was unique because it was everybody moving in a unified manner," ****SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT THE POPULARITY OF "THE ELECTRIC SLIDE" AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS Friday, February 13, 2009Black Things I Love #7: The Electric SlidePosted by Conseulahttp://afrogeekmom.blogspot.com/2009/02/black-things-i-love-6-electric-slide.html" "Every wedding reception, graduation party, Saturday BBQ in the park, etc. will, at some point, see a large group of people doing the electric slide. I even remember doing the electric slide on the sidewalk during Mardi Gras as a marching band marched past playing Cameo's "Word Up." It's a fun dance, easy to do, and incredibly egalitarian--young and old, men and women, tragically hip and profoundly uncool, everybody can do it. ****http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KlzNv7ZfYo&feature=relatedNigeria/Jamaica Wedding/ Electric Slide Dance! USA "Nice, no matter what kind of gathering we as black people have it's one song gauranteed to play and mostly everyone join. Yesss! The Electric Slide,lol. Sometimes, you got to get gizzy with it and take it to the floor,lol, if your bones and joints will let you. LOL darknhansum4lyfe. 2010"****ADDENDUM -August 30, 2025From August 20, 2025 through August 30, 2025 I published a number of pancocojams posts on African American (soul; urban, and zydeco) line dances. Click the African American line dances tag below for the links to those posts.As part of this energy, I was led to revisit this post on the Electric Slide line dance. Based on the comments that Ric Silver shared in the discussion thread for this 2012 pancocojams post on the Electric Slide, it appears that at one point I had added and then eventually removed information in that post about Ric Silver being the first person to choreograph the line dance that is widely known as "The Electric Slide". Here's an excerpt of the Wikipedia page on the Electric Slide dance that I retrieved on August 30, 2025: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Slide

"The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall line dance. Choreographer and dancer Richard L. "Ric" Silver claims to have created the dance in 1976.[1]

Dance popularity is sometimes attributed to its setting to Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer's song "Electric Boogie", which was written and recorded for the first time in December 1982.[2][3][4]

There are several variations of the dance. The original choreography has 22 steps,[5] but variants include the Freeze (16-step), Cowboy Motion (24-step), Cowboy Boogie (24-step), and the Electric Slide 2 (18-step). The 18-step variation became popular in 1989 and for ten years was listed by Linedancer Magazine as the number-one dance in the world

The original dance was choreographed to be danced in two lines facing each other and in the course the opposite dancers circle each other.[1]

Controversy

In 2007, Silver filed DMCA-based take-down notices to YouTube users who posted videos of people performing the 18-step dance variation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis against Silver, asking the court to protect Machulis's free speech rights in recording a few steps of the dance in a documentary video posted to the Internet.[6] On May 22, 2007, the EFF came to an agreement to settle the lawsuit: the settlement states that Silver will license the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons noncommercial license[7] and will also post the new license on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide.

The NPR reporter Patricia Meschino wrote: "Broadway Choreographer Ric Silver created the popular line dance the Electric Slide for the song-a routine Wailer nimbly demonstrates in a 1989 video".[8]

In recent decades, there has been some controversy regarding the creation year of the Electric Slide line dance. Silver claimed that he received a demo of the song 'Electric Boogie' in 1976, which he used to create his dance steps.[9] Yet according to Marcia Griffiths, the song 'Electric Boogie' was written for her by Bunny Wailer in early 1980s.[10]"...

****

This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series. Thanks for visiting pancocojams. Viewer comments are welcome. Posted by Azizi Powell at 4:38 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Labels: African American line dances, The Electric Slide

16 comments:

1. UnknownApril 6, 2016 at 5:56 PM

   I enjoyed your article very much. Quite informitive, thank you

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   1. Azizi PowellApril 6, 2016 at 8:31 PM

      Greetings, Marsha Beede.Thanks for your comment!

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2. NYCsDancerApril 15, 2016 at 2:13 PM

   I want to thank you for giving me credit for the dance - I have had many complaints because people say How could I have created the dance in 1976 when the song wasn't released until 1982 - well - it was recorded by Bob Marley and his band with Marcia singing and sent to DJs in NYC as a demo (one side pressing) to get feedback - I happened to be a very good friend of one of those DJs and one night as I entered the club on 42nd st. he said he had gotten in a new record that he was sure I was going to love - I did - and as I was leaving that night he handed me the 45 and I took it home and put in on the shelf - a few months later I was asked by my bosses at Vamps Disco to give a re-opening party and "Could I create a dance to premier at that party" - so I pulled the record off the shelf and created the dance - which took off immediately - the club had been designed for Professional Dancers Only - and so I had to create something that was challenging enough for them to enjoy - soon we had lines around the block wanting to get into the club - and the owners decided to open the doors to the general public - at which time I had to pear down the dance to the basics as it would have been too difficult for the average dancer - and so I only taught the 1st couple of sections of the dance - a gentleman from the Chicago area learned the dance correctly - but upon returning home found the dance too simple to have a repeated step (13-16 are supposed to be repeated) and so while teaching the dance he decided to drop the repeat and the dance ended up going around the world as an 18 step dance instead of a 22 step dance which is was originally created as - because my birthday is Jan 22nd - and I wanted it to have 22 steps to honor that .....

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   1. Azizi PowellApril 15, 2016 at 2:50 PM

      Thank you, NYCsDancer, for your comment which adds information about the creation of the dance now known as "The Electric Slide".Are you Ric Silver? If so, I'm honored that you shared that information on this blog.Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's page on the Electric Slide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Slide:"The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall line dance set to Marcia Griffiths' song "Electric Boogie". Choreographer Ric Silver created the dance in 1976 from a demo of the Marcia Griffiths recording and the original choreography has 22 steps.[1]"...Thanks again!

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   2. Azizi PowellApril 15, 2016 at 2:53 PM

      Here's another excerpt that I found on Ric Silver and the Electric Slide (Electric Boogie): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7492263..."Mr. RICHARD SILVER (Choreographer, Creator of Electric Slide): It's a series of grapevines to the right, back to the left then straight back and then you step forward and touch and step back and touch and you repeat that step, which is what everybody has forgotten. They don't do the repeat step.(Soundbite of song, "Electric Boogie")Ms. GRIFFITHS: (Singing) And I'll teach you, teach you, teach you, I'll teach the electric slide.MONTAGNE: There are supposed to be 22 steps to the dance because Richard Silver was born on January 22. Most people only do 18.Mr. SILVER: When I started going to weddings to bar mitzvahs myself and getting on the dance floor to do the dance and people are coming up to me saying you're doing it wrong, I got very upset.MONTAGNE: So what do you say? Excuse me, I invented it?Mr. SILVER: Yes."...-snip-Also, for the record (no pun intended), Ric Silver, the invention of "The Electric Slide" isn't Black.

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   3. NYCsDancerApril 16, 2016 at 8:20 AM

      Yes - I am Ric Silver - but my friends know me as New York City's Dancer - hense the email address.....and for the record - I am 1/2 Portuguese and 1/2 Swamp Yankee (or at least that's what grampa told me- which I found out through Ancestry dot com means a Scottish King's descendant came to America and laid with the Indians, French and whom ever else was around to create my Grandparents. My Grandmother was an Adams - and my Father's mother was a Princess in the Azores from Villa Estrellia

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   4. Azizi PowellApril 16, 2016 at 11:46 AM

      Thanks for sharing that information with pancocojams readers. Ric.I mentioned that you weren't Black because I thought that you were Black since the Electric Slide is so very popular among Black people, I jumped to the conclusion that a Black person had created the choreography.Keep on keeping on!!

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3. omalone1September 14, 2016 at 5:04 PM

   Hey, when was her electric slide video released in North Americawas she living there at the time it was producedwas she producing reggae at the time it was producedand how did she come to produce that sound she produced in the songthanks

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   1. Azizi PowellSeptember 15, 2016 at 7:00 PM

      Greetings, omalone1.From the online information that I've read, Marcia Griffiths was living in Jamaica when the record "Electric Boogie" was first released in the USA. Visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_GriffithsHere's a quote from that page:"In 1983, she released her re-recording of the Bunny Wailer song "Electric Boogie", originally recorded and released by Wailer in 1976. Although the 1983 version became a minor hit for Griffiths, the song was remixed in 1989, and it was this version that made the Electric Slide, a line dance, an international dance craze.[3][4] It reached number 51 on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it her most successful single.[1] It remains the highest-selling single by a female reggae singer of all time.[5] "...-snip-It should be noted that I've read different dates for the US recording (1982, 1982 and then 1988 or 1989.) I'm not sure which dates are the correct ones.

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4. UnknownJune 29, 2018 at 7:46 PM

   this is very informative

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   1. Azizi PowellJune 29, 2018 at 8:26 PM

      Thanks for your comment, unknown.I enjoyed doing this research about the history of the "Electric Slide" dance and sharing in this blog.

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   2. Ric SilverSeptember 3, 2018 at 11:53 AM

      A friend of mine found a 33 1/3 rpm recording on an Island Beats label (undated-listed Radio & DJ Copy) with two versions (3:58 & 6:35 min) that I posted to You-Tube that is the closest I have found to the original Reggae beat I choreographed the dance to.

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   3. Ric SilverSeptember 3, 2018 at 11:58 AM

      the link is :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSdMG0rNBMo&feature=youtu.be or just click on my name here and it will take you there....

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   4. Azizi PowellSeptember 3, 2018 at 1:17 PM

      Ric Silver, thanks for sharing this link to your original audio file of "Electric Boogie", more commonly known as "Electric Slide".Here's that link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSdMG0rNBMo&feature=youtu.be.Thanks for your contribution to dance music!

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5. SamApril 22, 2022 at 11:02 AM

   Do you know where the video was shot?

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6. NYCsDancerApril 22, 2022 at 12:14 PM

   Which video are you speaking of? My video of me teaching the dance was shot here in Niantic, Connecticut - Marcia shot her videos in Jamaca I believe - but I can't be sure.

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About Me

Azizi Powell I'm an African American mother, grandmother, & retired human services administrator. For more than forty years I have shared adapted West African stories with audiences in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. I have four blogspots: pancocojams, zumalayah, cocojams2, and .Civil Rights Songs. Much of the content of these blogs were previously found on my cocojams and jambalayah cultural websites. I curate all of these blogs on a voluntary basis. Each of these blogs have the primary goal of raising awareness about cultural aspects of African American culture and of other Black cultures throughout the world, particularly in regards to music & dance traditions. Viewer comments are welcome on my blogspots. View my complete profile