TWISTING AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) American University professor Dr. Leonard Steinhorn says that bringing "The Twist," the dance craze of the early 1960s, to the White House..."ushered in the new era in a number of ways, perhaps even more profoundly than"...JFK's inaugural address.
Britannica defines the twist as a..."vigorous dance" characterized by "hip, arm and leg movements" akin to "drying the buttocks with an imaginary towel while grinding out an imaginary cigarette with a foot."
Mary Meyer biographer Nina Burleigh said..."The twist represented youth and the end of the dreary 1950s." According to Robert Strauss, the twist craze was born when..."The producers at Philly's Cameo-Parkway Record label reformulated a song called 'The Twist' by the R&B group Hank Ballard and the Midnighters."
Strauss said that the record company employed Ernest Evans (a.k.a. Chubby Checker) to record the new version and then headline at the Rainbow Club in Wildwood in the summer of 1960.
Chubby Checker, who would go on to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and the Ed Sullivan Show, said..."Rock and roll had a sound, a beat, but it didn't have a dance, not until...the twist."
Chubby added...
"Everything from then on was dancing apart to the beat. It was like doing a striptease without taking your clothes off, and the kids loved it."
Apparently, so did Jacqueline Kennedy. The First Lady, one of the youngest in history at age 31, danced the twist at the White House. A friend said she saw her... "bend her knees and elbows and turn like a corkscrew down to the East Room floor during a private party."
It seems the friend said nothing about the President so we may assume he was not dancing with her. The website "Return to Camelot: Music of the Kennedy Years," says...
"While some thought it scandalous when there was 'twisting in the historic East Room,' the President himself did not dance--he merely watched the twisters at work."
SOURCES
"Jack: A Life Like No Other," by Geoffrey Perret, Random House, New York, 2001.
"Return to Camelot: Music of the Kennedy Years," www.wosu.org
"Twisting Into History: 50 years ago Wildwood gave birth to Chubby Checker's dance craze," by Robert Strauss, New Jersey Monthly, April 11, 2013, www.njmothly.com/
www.britannica.com
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) American University professor Dr. Leonard Steinhorn says that bringing "The Twist," the dance craze of the early 1960s, to the White House..."ushered in the new era in a number of ways, perhaps even more profoundly than"...JFK's inaugural address.
Britannica defines the twist as a..."vigorous dance" characterized by "hip, arm and leg movements" akin to "drying the buttocks with an imaginary towel while grinding out an imaginary cigarette with a foot."
Mary Meyer biographer Nina Burleigh said..."The twist represented youth and the end of the dreary 1950s." According to Robert Strauss, the twist craze was born when..."The producers at Philly's Cameo-Parkway Record label reformulated a song called 'The Twist' by the R&B group Hank Ballard and the Midnighters."
Strauss said that the record company employed Ernest Evans (a.k.a. Chubby Checker) to record the new version and then headline at the Rainbow Club in Wildwood in the summer of 1960.
Chubby Checker, who would go on to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and the Ed Sullivan Show, said..."Rock and roll had a sound, a beat, but it didn't have a dance, not until...the twist."
Chubby added...
"Everything from then on was dancing apart to the beat. It was like doing a striptease without taking your clothes off, and the kids loved it."
Apparently, so did Jacqueline Kennedy. The First Lady, one of the youngest in history at age 31, danced the twist at the White House. A friend said she saw her... "bend her knees and elbows and turn like a corkscrew down to the East Room floor during a private party."
It seems the friend said nothing about the President so we may assume he was not dancing with her. The website "Return to Camelot: Music of the Kennedy Years," says...
"While some thought it scandalous when there was 'twisting in the historic East Room,' the President himself did not dance--he merely watched the twisters at work."
SOURCES
"Jack: A Life Like No Other," by Geoffrey Perret, Random House, New York, 2001.
"Return to Camelot: Music of the Kennedy Years," www.wosu.org
"Twisting Into History: 50 years ago Wildwood gave birth to Chubby Checker's dance craze," by Robert Strauss, New Jersey Monthly, April 11, 2013, www.njmothly.com/
www.britannica.com
Chubby Checker
Photo by Phil Konstantin (2008)
