Sugarcreek was the hottest band in Myrtle Beach. Here’s where the band members are now
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They were Myrtle Beach’s hottest band in the 1980s. Burning up the stage each summer at the Pavilion’s Magic Attic, Sugarcreek would entertain thousands who would turn out to watch them play.
Fans of the rock band called themselves “Creek Freaks,” teenagers who came of age listening and dancing to the band’s songs.
Tim Clark remembers those days.
As the lead singer and front man of the band, Clark recalls seeing fans lined up four-people wide from the upstairs leading into Magic Attic all the way down onto Ocean Boulevard and along 8th Avenue.
“If I told those kids to go jump in the ocean, they would have done it. They drank the Kool-Aid, if you will. ... If you were a Creek Freak, you just lived and died Sugarcreek.”
Now, those teenagers are adults and Clark, who at 66 still performs music, said he still hears from fans of the band, “and you’re talking 40-some years ago.”
“I don’t go a week without someone bringing that up,” Clark said of people’s memories. “(They tell me) You guys were the soundtrack of my youth.”
How the band started
Sugarcreek was founded in 1971, according to band member and keyboardist Rick Lee.
And while the Charlotte, North Carolina-based group had been performing for years, its peak of popularity happened from 1980 through 1989. It was during this time that the band’s music, which was deemed album-oriented rock that drew inspiration from such groups as Journey and Styx, received radio air play and was heard across the United States and in such countries as Canada and Europe. The group also received a record deal, releasing several albums that included such hits as “Crazy Kinda Love,” “Rock the Night Away” and “What a Night.”
They even appeared on TV, including the well-known talent search competition “Star Search.”
Clark describes Lee as the driving force behind the band’s success.
Lee said people would begin to line up at 5:30 p.m. for the show that began at 8:30 p.m. The now 71-year-old said Sugarcreek performed 352 nights at Magic Attic, the majority of those nights being in the ‘80s.
In the 1970s, Sugarcreek, as well as other bands who played at Magic Attic, were most often booked for three days at a time - Monday through Wednesday or Thursday through Saturday, but never on Sundays, Lee said. The reason bands never played on Sundays is because South Carolina law prohibits dancing in dance halls on Sundays.
Eventually, organizers would put folding chairs all over the dance floor and called it a “concert” on Sunday nights, Lee said. If anyone would start dancing, they were asked to sit down. “We may have instigated some folks to participate a little more than the law allowed,” Lee said.
“I don’t know what it was about that building,” Lee said of the Pavilion. He said his mother took the family there when he was 12.
“When you would walk through that door and see that band playing and see all those kids, I just said I have to do this,” Lee said of his decision to play music. “(The Pavilion) was just a magical place.”
Sugarcreek eventually called it quits in 1990, but a reunion concert was performed at the Magic Attic in 2006 as part of the farewell season of the Pavilion, which was shut down that year.
Where are they now?
Several members of Sugarcreek still play in the Myrtle Beach area.
Tim Clark: Clark performs with his band, the Tim Clark Band. The North Myrtle Beach resident, who will eventually make a permanent move to Mount Airy, North Carolina, will perform at 3001 Nightlife for New Year’s Eve.
Rick Lee: After Sugarcreek, Lee started the band Too Much Sylvia, which has been performing 33 years - 23 of those with the same band members.
The band, which plays beach music, as well as ‘80s, variety and Sugarcreek songs, performs in North Myrtle Beach for the shag dancing group Society of Stranders, Fat’ Harold’s Beach Club and 3001 night club.
Eddy Howie: Howie helped Lee found Too Much Sylvia in 1991. The band play 150 shows a year across the Carolinas and Virginia. They are Hall of Fame members of the Carolina Beach Music Association.
Jerry West: West plays in the band Cat 5 after being a guitarist for 24 years with the Band of Oz and Sugarcreek. The band performs in the Myrtle Beach area, as well as in North Carolina.
Robbie Hegler: Hegler now plays with the Southside Saints, which performs at several places in the Myrtle Beach area.
