Twist Dance History
The advent of rock and roll in the 1950s changed the way young people danced at social events. Non-contact dance steps took the place of traditional paired styles. Of the hundreds of fad dance steps of the fifties and sixties---including the watusi, the shake, the hitchhike, the pony, the mashed potato, the chicken, the dog and the loco-motion---the twist remains the most famous step tied to the song it was named after.
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The Original Song
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The original 1959 version of the song "The Twist" was a 12-bar blues that became a minor hit on the B-side of Hank Ballard and the Midnighters' "Teardrops on Your Letter." The song was inspired by the twisty moves of the Midnighters' background singers, according to SixtiesCity.com. Chubby Checker covered the tune in 1960, and also helped popularize the dance that went along with it, both of which became a sensation. His version became a major hit, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
American Bandstand
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Dick Clark, host of the popular teen TV program American Bandstand, then based in Philadelphia, noticed kids gyrating in a novel way to the Hank Ballard original. He contacted the Philadelphia label Cameo/Parkway, and encouraged it to release a remake of the tune. The label hired Checker, singer of the minor 1959 hit "The Class," to put his own spin on it. The remake "was so close to the original in sound," according to the New York Times, "that even Mr. Ballard thought it was his own version the first time he heard it on the radio."
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The Dance
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The young audience of the original version of "The Twist" started the dance trend, according to an interview with Checker from ClassicBands.com. It's a simple dance that calls for you to swivel your torso from one side to the other, lifting each heel alternately as you turn away from it. Instructions included in the record told dancers, "Imagine you are stubbing out a cigarette with both feet whilst drying your back with a towel."
Popularity
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The dance became a media sensation a year after Checker's version was released, when upscale socialites were reportedly dancing the twist at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City, according to the New York Times. "The Twist" landed at the No. 1 spot on the pop charts for a second time, in 1961, becoming only the second song to do so, along with "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby.
Other Versions
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Chubby Checker went on to record several other songs with dance fad tie-ins, including "The Fly," "The Mess Around" and "The Hucklebuck." He also recorded variants of "The Twist," most notably "Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer)." He released a version of the original in the 1970s that was almost identical, and in 1988 he teamed up with the Fat Boys for a rap version of the song.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Flickr/Avinash Meetoo
