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The following features interesting facts and stories behind classic oldies from the past 50 years, and on rare occasions, even older. Songs are chosen arbitrarily. The debut date of the single on the Billboard charts is listed to the right of the title, followed by its peak position and weeks on chart in parenthesis. Taking requests at chapworld@charter.net. |
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"The Twist" -- Chubby Checker (1960 / 1961) |
Aug 1, 1960 #1 (18) |
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"The Twist" is a twelve bar blues song that gave birth to the Twist dance craze. The song was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side (to "Teardrops on Your Letter") but his version was only a moderate 1960 hit, peaking at #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song, and the dance the Twist, was popularized in 1960 when the song was covered by Chubby Checker...
Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941 in Spring Gulley, South Carolina and as a child was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his parents and two brothers. By age eight Evans formed a street corner harmony group and, by the time he entered high school, learned to play the piano as well as entertain his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabiano Forte, who would become a popular singer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian...
After school, Evans would entertain customers at his various jobs, including Fresh Farm Poultry on Ninth Street and at the Produce Market, with songs and jokes, and it was his boss at the Produce Market, Tony A., who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". The storeowner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by Ernest's performances for the customers that he, with his colleague and friend Karl Mann, who worked as a songwriter for Cameo-Parkway Records, arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. It was at this recording session that Evans got his stage name from Clark's wife, who asked Evans what his name was. "Well", he replied, "my friends call me 'Chubby'". As he had just completed a Fats Domino impression, she smiled and said, "As in Checker?" That little play on words ('chubby' meaning 'fat', and 'checkers', like 'dominos', being a game) got an instant laugh and stuck, and from then on, Evans would use the name "Chubby Checker"...  His single became a smash hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 19, 1960 (one week), and then setting a record by being the only single to reach number one in two different chart runs when it resurfaced and topped the chart again on January 13, 1962 (two weeks)... In 1988, "The Twist" became popular once again, due to a new recording of the song by The Fat Boys featuring Chubby Checker. This version reached number two in the United Kingdom and number one in Germany. It topped out at #16 in the U.S...
Songs about doing the Twist went back to nineteenth-century minstrelsy, including "Grape Vine Twist" from around 1844. In 1938 Jelly Roll Morton, in "Winin' Boy Blues," sang, "Mama, mama, look at sis, she's out on the levee doing the double twist," a reference to both sex and dancing in those days... As for this particular song, "The Twist," Hank Ballard's guitarist, Cal Green, said they picked up the general idea from Brother Joe Wallace of the gospel group The Sensational Nightingales, who of course couldn't record it himself. Green and Ballard already had written a song together called "Is Your Love For Real," which they'd taken from Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters' 1955 song "What'cha Gonna Do," so they simply put the new Twist words to the older melody, and voila! "The Twist" They originally recorded a loose version of the song in a Florida studio in early 1958, with slightly different lyrics, featuring Green on guitar playing like Jimmy Reed. However, they didn't get around to recording the released version until November 11, 1958, when the Midnighters were in Cincinnati. Ballard thought "The Twist" was the hit side, but King Records producer Henry Glover preferred the ballad "Teardrops on Your Letter," which he'd written himself...
The song became popular on a Baltimore television dance show hosted by local DJ Buddy Dean; Dean recommended the song to Dick Clark, host of the national American Bandstand. When the song proved popular with his audience, Clark attempted to book Ballard to perform on the show. Ballard was unavailable, and Clark searched for a local artist to record the song. He settled on Checker, whose voice was very similar to Ballard's. Checker's version featured Buddy Savitt on sax and Ellis Tollin on drums, with backing vocals by the Dreamlovers. Exposure for the song on American Bandstand and on The Dick Clark Saturday Night Show helped propel the song to the top of the American charts...
In 1962, the twist craze belatedly caught on in high society. Sightings of celebrities doing the dance made the song a hit with adults. This new interest made "The Twist" the only recording to hit number one on the United States charts during two separate chart runs, and marked a major turning point for adult acceptance of rock and roll music... Checker re-recorded the song numerous times. An updated 1982 recording (from his album The Change Has Come) was retitled "T-82", and in the 1990s, he recorded a country version. In the late 1970s, he recorded a new version that, except for the sound mix and some minor arrangement changes, was identical to the 1960 original; as a result this later version is often misidentified on compilations as the original recording. Checker also recorded variations on the theme, such as "Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer)" to keep the craze alive (although "Let's Twist Again" was and has remained more popular than "The Twist" itself in the United Kingdom). In 1988, he joined The Fat Boys on a rap version of the song, bearing the subtitle "Yo, Twist". Checker also joined the group to perform the song that summer at a London tribute concert for Nelson Mandela...
According to Billboard Magazine, "The Twist" held the honor of being the number-one song on its "Hot 100 50th Anniversary" list of "The Billboard: All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs" in the first 50 years of the Hot 100 chart... The song is ranked #451 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time...
The song is featured on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack released May 1, 2007... Jim Dawson wrote a 1995 book about the song and the Twist phenomenon called "The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance That Changed the World." ...
Ballard got the idea for the song by watching his backup group, The Midnighters, on stage. To Hank the group often moved onstage like they were "trying to put a cigarette out." In a sense, they were twisting. Thus, the title of the song... This started a dance craze that got so popular because it was so easy to do. Even the severely rhythm-challenged could do the twist. This helped bridge a generation gap, since both kids and adults could do it...
Ballard was not bitter toward Checker or Clark when his version was left behind. As the songwriter, he earned massive royalties when Checker's version became a huge hit...
When this was released for the second time in 1961, three of Checker's albums entered the US top 10 at the same time. It was the first time this had been done in the Rock era... Checker was in the movies Don't Knock The Twist and Twist Around The Clock. He was not shy about leveraging the marketing opportunities of The Twist...
After this was released, many other groups incorporated The Twist in their songs. The Isley Brothers had "Twist And Shout," Joey Dee And The Starlighters had "The Peppermint Twist," and Sam Cooke released "Twistin' The Night Away." "The Peppermint Twist" replaced this at #1 in 1961...
The Twist was a worldwide phenomenon. Checker recorded versions in Italian, German and French... The Twist is performed by standing with the feet approximately shoulder width apart. The torso may be squared to the knees and hips, or turned at an angle so one foot is farther forward than the other. The arms are held out from the body, bent at the elbow. The hips, torso, and legs rotate on the balls of the feet as a single unit, with the arms staying more or less stationary. The feet grind back and forth on the floor, and the dance can be varied in speed, intensity, and vertical height as necessary. Occasionally one leg is lifted off the floor for styling, but generally the dance posture is low and with the feet in contact with the floor with very little vertical motion...
The Twist's original inspiration came from the African American plantation dance called "wringin' and twistin," which has been traced back to the 1890s. However, its original aesthetic origins, such as the use of pelvic movement and the shuffling foot movement, can be traced all the way back to West Africa. Throughout the 20th Century, the dance evolved until emerging to a mass audience in the 1960s...
Come on baby let's do the twist My daddy is sleepin' and mama ain't around Yeah you should see my little Sis
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