Old-Time Rock ‘n’ Roll:
How The 1980s Embraced 1950s and 1960s Oldies Music
Dirty Dancing
Photo: "Dirty Dancing" by AndyRobertsPhotos is licensed under CC BY 2.0
The 1987 blockbuster movie Dirty Dancing starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey is set at an early 1960s Catskill resort. The main character Baby, played by Grey, develops a crush on the resort’s dance instructor Johnny Castle, played by Swayze. Castle specialized in raunchy, sexual dancing at a time America shunned such un-Christian acts. Castle shows Baby his dance moves, on and off the ballroom floor. (I’ve Had) The Time of My Live,
sung by Jennifer Warnes and legendary Righteous Brother singer Bill Medley is the biggest hit of movie’s soundtrack. This chart topper sounds more 1980s, than 1960s. Despite that historical inaccuracy, the movie’s soundtrack contains many rock ‘n’ roll hits. One of the popular and steamy Dirty Dancing scenes involves Frankie and Silvia’s 1956 hit Love is Strange.
To David R. Shumway, author of Rock ‘n’ Roll Soundtracks and the Production of Nostalgia,
movies like Dirty Dancing take liberties with their soundtracks. The music played in the movie may not be the tunes popular at the time the movie takes place. However, they are meant to signal to the audience that they are idealized
oldies tunes of that era. Shumway does credit the Dirty Dancing soundtrack for choosing titles that white middle class Americans, such as Baby’s parents, would have shunned as being too sexual. Otis Redding’s Love Man
is a good example. The music made the movei a huge hit with baby boomers and Gen X, grossing over 200 million dollars as of 2020.