Sunday 7 February 2016

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY - AFRICAN AMERICAN " DON CAMPBELL " THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE CAMPBELL LOCKING STYLE OF DANCING - GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                                                     BLACK      SOCIAL     HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              






























                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        History Of The Realness Dance Styles
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The History Of Locking

In 1970 at Trade Tech University a young man by the name of Don Campbell was in the cafeteria watching the popular dances of the time such as the Funky Chicken, The Sling, The Slide and many others. As Don tried to do these dances, he created his own unique way of doing them. The dances from the 70′s funk era are usually done in a smooth, loose funky manor. Don’s version had a sharper finish and was nicknamed the locks. Friends would say ” yo Campbell do the lock’s, and he would continue adding a sharp ‘STOP’ (The lock) . . .This was the birth of CAMPBELL LOCKING.

Wrist twirls and points like he was pointing at friends along with knee drops giving himself five and half splits (which were performed by legendary dancers such as the Nicholas brothers in the 20′s & 30′s were also used. He would also add hat tricks and play with a handkerchief whilst dancing, this was known as the CAMPBELLOCKING style.
 Many people were impressed with don’s unique & stylish dress sense which was mashmellow shoes, long striped socks, trousers called knickers, colourful tops (sometimes striped) and suspenders (braces).

During this time there were many great party dancers and they all loved and watched don and his new dance, and then the CAMPBELLOCKING style became very popular within the funk clubs in Los Angeles. He got together with some friends Charles ‘Robot’ Washington, Johnny ‘Sambo lock’ Mc cloud & fred ‘rerun’ Berry and traveled the funky clubs with the funky CAMPBELLOCKING STYLE.

As very talented party dancers such as Jimmy ‘Scooby doo’ Foster & Greg Campbellock jr & Damita Jo Freeman watched don’s CAMPBELLOCKING style in awe, they would watch learn and copy don’s dance adding moves such as the muscleman pose (Up Lock) and the lock, which included the whole body, paying special attention to the torso (the funk!) Wrist twirls (rolls), & accurate points etc. The lock & Giving yourself five were some of the original moves of campbellocking but Other moves which are now known to locking were later added by Don Campbellock’s group THE LOCKERS. The LOCKERS consisted of seven members; Greg Campbellock jr who played an very important role in creating the vocabulary as we know it. Flukey Luke (whicha way/Leo walk inventor, shabbadoo, Mr. Penguin, slim the Robot, & Toni Basil. After Mr. Penguin left the group to pursue an acting career, Tony Go Go from the Group The Go Go Brothers was used as an alternate and performed with the group. Moves such as the Scooby Doo, the Stop’n'go & the Scoobot, were dances done at the time & were invented by Jimmy ‘scooby doo’ Foster.Woaw 2

No comments:

Post a Comment