Shimmy

Gilda Gray attributed to American Indians in a 1919 interview with Variety saying "You may not believe it but the original shimmy dance has never been properly introduced in New York.

I know, for I have studied the dancing characteristics of the Indians for a long time, and they are really responsible for the shimmy which they labelled the 'Shima Shiwa'.

"I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" was an up-tempo jazz dance song, written by Clarence Williams and Armand Piron, and published in 1919 which has been popular ever since and performed and recorded by many artists.

In the late 1910s, others were also attributed as being the "inventor" of the shimmy, including Hilda Ferguson, Bee Palmer and the jazz duo Frank Hale and Signe Paterson.

[3] Mae West, in her autobiography Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, claimed to have re-titled the "Shimmy-Shawobble" as the Shimmy, after seeing the moves in some black nightclubs.