"WE'RE GONNA TWISTY, TWISTY, TWISTY, 'TIL WE TEAR THE HOUSE DOWN"
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) While the Kennedy years are most commonly associated with the musical 'Camelot', it was a dance craze that captured the imagination of a generation of young Americans of the early 1960s.
Nina Burleigh writes..."The Twist* represented youth and the end of the dreary 1950s," while Robert Strauss believes the twist craze was born when"the producers at Philly's Cameo-Parkway Record label reformulated a song called 'The Twist' by...Hank Ballard and the Midnighters."
Strauss says that the record company employed 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."
*Britannica defines the twist as a..."vigorous dance" of the 1960s 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."
**Chubby Checker (a.k.a. Ernest Evans) was born in Spring Gully, SC in 1941. He was the son of a tobacco farmer. The family moved to Philadelphia where he was called 'Chubby' because of his heavy build. CC's recording of 'The Twist' went to #1 on the charts in September 1960 and once again in January 1962. The tune is the only 45 single record to make #1 in two different years.
SOURCES
"Jack: A Life Like No Other," by Geoffrey Perret, Random House, New York, 2001.
"John F. Kennedy: A Biography," by Michael Obrien, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2005.
"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) While the Kennedy years are most commonly associated with the musical 'Camelot', it was a dance craze that captured the imagination of a generation of young Americans of the early 1960s.
Nina Burleigh writes..."The Twist* represented youth and the end of the dreary 1950s," while Robert Strauss believes the twist craze was born when"the producers at Philly's Cameo-Parkway Record label reformulated a song called 'The Twist' by...Hank Ballard and the Midnighters."
Strauss says that the record company employed 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 Checker (a.k.a. Ernest Evans) was born in Spring Gully, SC in 1941. He was the son of a tobacco farmer. The family moved to Philadelphia where he was called 'Chubby' because of his heavy build. CC's recording of 'The Twist' went to #1 on the charts in September 1960 and once again in January 1962. The tune is the only 45 single record to make #1 in two different years.
SOURCES
"Jack: A Life Like No Other," by Geoffrey Perret, Random House, New York, 2001.
"John F. Kennedy: A Biography," by Michael Obrien, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2005.
"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
