Bands, bootleggers and bombshells: take a ride through the Roaring ’20s
“Funky” Leroy Harper, Jr. plays the saxophone with his band, the All Stars (WPDE).
(WPDE)-
100 years ago, on January 17, Prohibition became the law of the land.
The government’s goal was simple: keep liquor out of the people’s hands and promote morality among the general public.
It wound up being one of the most spectacular backfires of the 20th century.
The ban on alcohol production and consumption prompted a country newly freed of World War I to take its leisure time underground. Bootleggers began producing or smuggling alcohol in modified cars. Speakeasies became gathering spots to listen to jazz music, dance, and drink.
“There’s bootleg liquor on every American lip! Shiny flask on every hip!” a TV announcer described over archived footage. “By the middle 1920s America is having its heyday. For America is dry, and high!”
Twelve 33 Distillery President Kevin Osborne said the Carolinas were in the middle of it all.
“[The] Carolinas were a hotbed for production of spirits,” he explained. “A lot of moon-shining going on out in the backwoods and a lot of great stories coming out of North Carolina and South Carolina.”
A bartender makes a drink at Twelve 33 Distillery in Little River (WPDE).
A bartender makes a drink at Twelve 33 Distillery in Little River (WPDE).
“Funky” Leroy Harper Jr.’s grandfather was a trumpet player in some of the clubs, performing jazz at the height of the genre.
“It was like the MTV music of the ’20s and ’30s,” the saxophone-playing grandson said, wistfully. “[Jazz has] got intellectual content, it’s got spiritual content, and it’s challenging.”
Harper’s own journey with jazz has taken him all over the world with the James Brown Band and to TV shows. He spends his days on the Grand Strand playing with his friends, “Funky Leroy Harper Jr’s All-Stars.”
Back in the 1920s, Florence was an expanding railroad town. Georgetown was also well established and opened two new bridges to access the city.
Myrtle Beach was still a decade away from incorporation and was little more than a collection of homes.
You can check out footage of flappers, bootleggers, jazz bands, and photos of historic South Carolina in the video above!
