Ric Silver - Dec 30, 2006
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - The Electric Slide - Single Line version (original
choreography)
Ric Silver, Mar 17, 2007
This is not the best video - some of the younger kids got camera shy and made some mistakes - so pls disregard
Music(Electric Boogie) by permission of Marcia Griffith in good faith for using my Choreography in her earlier videos without permission
-snip-
Comments are turned off.
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases two YouTube videos that were posted by Ric Silver who is credited as being the first choreographer of the dance that is widely known as "The Electric Slide".
This post also showcases a 2018 YouTube video of Marcia Griffiths' "Electric Boogie" that shows people doing that line dance.
The focus of this post are comments that Ric Silvers added to the discussion thread for the pancocojams post that I published on January 5, 2012 " The History Of The Electric Slide (information & video)" https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/02/history-of-electric-slide.html
As of August 30, 2025 at 5: 42 PM EDT, there are a total of 16 comments in the comment section for that 2012 pancocojams post.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and entertainment purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Bunny Wailer for composing the song "Electric Boogie". Thanks to Marcia Griffiths for her hit song "Electric Boogie". Thanks to Ric Silvers for choreographing "The Electric Slide" and thanks to other people for their choreography of versions of that dance. Thanks to the R&B group Cameo for their song "Candy" which has become one of the songs that the Electric Slide line dance is performed to in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in some other nations. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/02/selected-videos-of-electric-slide.html for Part II of this 2012 pancocojam series entitled "Selected Videos Of The Electric Slide".
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YOUTUBE VIDEO OF MARCIA GRIFFITHS' "THE ELECTRIC BOOGIE"
MarciaGriffiths, Apr 7, 2018 #ElectricBoogie
This is the Official Promo Video.
ADDENDUM TO THE JANUARY 2012 POST ON THE ELECTRIC SLIDE [PART I]
Added on August 30, 2025
From August 20, 2025 through August 30, 2025 I published a number of pancocojams posts on African American (soul; urban, and zydeco) line dances. Click the African American line dances tag below for the links for those posts.
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the Electric Slide dance that I retrieved on August 30, 2025:
"The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall line dance. Choreographer and dancer Richard L. "Ric" Silver claims to have created the dance in 1976.[1]
Dance popularity is sometimes attributed to its setting to Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer's song "Electric Boogie", which was written and recorded for the first time in December 1982.[2][3][4]
There are several variations of the dance. The original choreography has 22 steps,[5] but variants include the Freeze (16-step), Cowboy Motion (24-step), Cowboy Boogie (24-step), and the Electric Slide 2 (18-step). The 18-step variation became popular in 1989 and for ten years was listed by Linedancer Magazine as the number-one dance in the world
The original dance was choreographed to be danced in two lines facing each other and in the course the opposite dancers circle each other.[1]
Controversy
In 2007, Silver filed DMCA-based take-down notices to YouTube users who posted videos of people performing the 18-step dance variation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis against Silver, asking the court to protect Machulis's free speech rights in recording a few steps of the dance in a documentary video posted to the Internet.[6] On May 22, 2007, the EFF came to an agreement to settle the lawsuit: the settlement states that Silver will license the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons noncommercial license[7] and will also post the new license on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide.
The NPR reporter Patricia Meschino wrote: "Broadway Choreographer Ric Silver created the popular line dance the Electric Slide for the song-a routine Wailer nimbly demonstrates in a 1989 video".[8]
In recent decades, there has been some controversy regarding the creation year of the Electric Slide line dance. Silver claimed that he received a demo of the song 'Electric Boogie' in 1976, which he used to create his dance steps.[9] Yet according to Marcia Griffiths, the song 'Electric Boogie' was written for her by Bunny Wailer in early 1980s.[10]"...
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COMMENTS FROM RIC SILVER THAT HE SENT TO THAT PANCOCOJAMS POST'S DISCUSSION THREAD
This section also includes several replies/comments from Azizi Powell, pancocojams editor and one question directed to Ric Silvers from a pancocojams visitor.
Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.
1. NYCsDancerApril 15, 2016 at 2:13 PM
"I want to thank you for giving me credit for the dance - I
have had many complaints because people say How could I have created the dance
in 1976 when the song wasn't released until 1982 - well - it was recorded by
Bob Marley and his band with Marcia singing and sent to DJs in NYC as a demo
(one side pressing) to get feedback - I happened to be a very good friend of
one of those DJs and one night as I entered the club on 42nd st. he said he had
gotten in a new record that he was sure I was going to love - I did - and as I
was leaving that night he handed me the 45 and I took it home and put in on the
shelf - a few months later I was asked by my bosses at Vamps Disco to give a
re-opening party and "Could I create a dance to premier at that
party" - so I pulled the record off the shelf and created the dance -
which took off immediately - the club had been designed for Professional
Dancers Only - and so I had to create something that was challenging enough for
them to enjoy - soon we had lines around the block wanting to get into the club
- and the owners decided to open the doors to the general public - at which
time I had to pear down the dance to the basics as it would have been too
difficult for the average dancer - and so I only taught the 1st couple of sections
of the dance - a gentleman from the Chicago area learned the dance correctly -
but upon returning home found the dance too simple to have a repeated step
(13-16 are supposed to be repeated) and so while teaching the dance he decided
to drop the repeat and the dance ended up going around the world as an 18 step
dance instead of a 22 step dance which is was originally created as - because
my birthday is Jan 22nd - and I wanted it to have 22 steps to honor that"
**
2.Azizi Powell, April 15, 2016 at 2:50 PM
"Thank you, NYCsDancer, for your comment which adds
information about the creation of the dance now known as "The Electric
Slide".
Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's page on the Electric Slide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Slide:
"The Electric (better known as The Electric Slide) is a four wall line dance set to Marcia Griffiths' song "Electric Boogie". Choreographer Ric Silver created the dance in 1976 from a demo of the Marcia Griffiths recording and the original choreography has 22 steps.[1]"...
Thanks again!"
**
3. Azizi Powell, April 15, 2016 at 2:53 PM
"Here's another excerpt that I found on Ric Silver and the
Electric Slide (Electric Boogie):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7492263
..."Mr. RICHARD SILVER (Choreographer, Creator of
Electric Slide): It's a series of grapevines to the right, back to the left
then straight back and then you step forward and touch and step back and touch
and you repeat that step, which is what everybody has forgotten. They don't do
the repeat step.
(Soundbite of song, "Electric Boogie")
Ms. GRIFFITHS: (Singing) And I'll teach you, teach you, teach you, I'll teach the electric slide.
MONTAGNE: There are supposed to be 22 steps to the dance because Richard Silver was born on January 22. Most people only do 18.
Mr. SILVER: When I started going to weddings to bar mitzvahs myself and getting on the dance floor to do the dance and people are coming up to me saying you're doing it wrong, I got very upset.
MONTAGNE: So what do you say? Excuse me, I invented it?
Mr. SILVER: Yes."...
-snip-
"Also, for the record (no pun intended), Ric Silver, the
invention of "The Electric Slide" isn't Black."
4. NYCsDancer, April 16, 2016 at 8:20 AM
"Yes - I am Ric Silver - but my friends know me as New York
City's Dancer - hense the email address.....and for the record - I am 1/2
Portuguese and 1/2 Swamp Yankee (or at least that's what grampa told me- which
I found out through Ancestry dot com means a Scottish King's descendant came to
America and laid with the Indians, French and whom ever else was around to
create my Grandparents. My Grandmother was an Adams - and my Father's mother
was a Princess in the Azores from Villa Estrellia"
**
5. Azizi Powell, April 16, 2016 at 11:46 AM
"Thanks for sharing that information with pancocojams
readers. Ric.
I mentioned that you weren't Black because I thought that you were Black since the Electric Slide is so very popular among Black people, I jumped to the conclusion that a Black person had created the choreography.
Keep on keeping on!!"
**
6. Ric Silver, September 3, 2018 at 11:53 AM
"A friend of mine found a 33 1/3 rpm recording on an Island
Beats label (undated-listed Radio & DJ Copy) with two versions (3:58 &
6:35 min) that I posted to You-Tube that is the closest I have found to the
original Reggae beat I choreographed the dance to."
7. Ric Silver, September 3, 2018 at 11:58 AM
"the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSdMG0rNBMo&feature=youtu.be
or just click on my name here and it will take you there..."
**
8. Azizi Powell, September 3, 2018 at 1:17 PM
"Ric Silver, thanks for sharing this link to your original
audio file of "Electric Boogie", more commonly known as
"Electric Slide".
Here's that link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSdMG0rNBMo&feature=youtu.be.
Thanks for your contribution to dance music!"
**
9. Sam, April 22, 2022 at 11:02 AM
"Do you know where the video was shot?"
10.
"Which video are you speaking of? My video of me teaching the dance was shot here in Niantic, Connecticut -
Marcia shot her videos in Jamaca I believe - but I can't be sure.ears was listed by Linedancer Magazine as the number-one dance in the world"
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