Earlier today I was listening to Blue Rodeo’s great, groovy cover of Go Go Round by Gordon Lightfoot. One verse goes:
In her cage she danced for him,
although a hundred eyes were turned her way
And before the set was through he knew
She would be his loved one
All sexism aside for a moment, I got to wondering who invented the disco cage, and where the trend started? I see some smarmy guy in LA in 1967 going “hey, I’ve got a funky notion, dude. Let’s put the gogo girls in cages!” I did a little searching, but came up empty. Anyone have more luck? I think I’m going to make it a personal mission to uncover the origins of cage dancing. Why, I may even start a Wikipedia article on the subject.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Completely unrelated, but to amuse my friends, I did a little cage dance in a bar in Mongolia.
Not too many people can say that 🙂
acording to: http://www.rockandrollroadmap.com/whiskey.html
and: http://www.soulgeneration.co.uk/tittyshakers.htm
(which is not perverse, despite the name)
it appears the phenomenon originated at the Whiskey A-Go-Go. I don’t know anything about Johnny Rivers and his smarminess rating but he seems to have been involved.
Sweet, nice work, Jo. I’ve added some info to my nascent article from those pages.
As a great fan of Blue Rodeo, I’m stumped as to what album that song is on. You sure it’s BR?
After a bit of searching, I found the album, a Gordon Lightfoot tribute album. Thanks for bringing up BR in your blog. Who’s your fav Canadian Band? My guess is Cowboy Junkies? Didn’t I go to CJ concert with your bro? I can remember the guitarist (lead singer’s brother?) sitting the whole time while playing on stage.
Indeed, the Cowboy Junkies are my favourite band, and have been for years. That’s kind of Michael Timmons’s thing–he always sits down.