SWING LIVELY!!

Besides being in all the Plays, and Variety Shows and All, I was at a School dance my Junior year, and they had somehow gotten one of the Stars from a television show called, "Swing Lively" to D.J. our dance. Swing Lively was taped in Lansing in the Channel Six News Room. MoTown in Detroit was BIG at the time and not that far from Lansing. It was very similar to "American Bandstand." Swing Lively managed to get most of the Stars from MoTown Records to come. You must remember this was during the 66/67 school year, quite a while back. The Big Acts came to Lansing to sing on the show.
I was dancing when Jay Stern called me over to him. He liked the way I danced and asked me if I'd like to be a dancer on his show? I was excited! He gave me a pass and said it would get me and one girl in every week.
Swing Lively had Jay Stern and Dennis Day as host. It was sponsered by Yankee Department Stores (Owned by Debbie Reynolds). It was a syndicated show that was on in quite a few states. We'd show up for the dancer's meeting and the taping on Thursday nights and watch ourselves on television Saturday afternoons. They had singers such as Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, The Supremes, Ike and Tina Turner, etc.
We didn't get to dance while they sang. They'd go in and tape their singing. I guess they didn't want distractions. After they sang, we,d be allowed in and dance to their music while those big, old style, t.v. cameras bumped us around as they taped us. Afterwards, we'd get to meet and visit with the singers.
One night during the Dancer's Meeting Jay told me to shorten my sideburns. I told him I was growing them out for a play I was in, but he said they had to go. So I quit.