The Twist (song)

"The Twist" is an American pop song written and originally released in 1958 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to "Teardrops on Your Letter".[1] Ballard's version was a moderate hit, peaking at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.[2] On the US Billboard Hot R&B Sides chart, the original version of "The Twist" first peaked at number sixteen in 1959 and at number six in 1960.[3]

"The Twist"
1960 45 rpm label
Single by Chubby Checker
from the album Twist with Chubby Checker
B-side
  • "Toot"
  • "Twistin' USA"
ReleasedJune 1960
Recorded1960
GenreRock and roll, pop
Length2:34
LabelParkway 811
Songwriter(s)Hank Ballard
Producer(s)Dave Appell
Chubby Checker singles chronology
"Dancing Dinosaur"
(1959)		 "The Twist"
(1960)		 "The Hucklebuck"
(1960)

Chubby Checker's 1960 cover version of the song gave birth to the Twist dance craze. His single became a hit, reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 19, 1960, where it stayed for one week, and setting a record at the time as the only song to reach number 1 in two different hit parade runs when it resurfaced and topped the popular hit parade again for two weeks starting on January 13, 1962.[4] This would not happen for another song for nearly 59 years until December 2020, when Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reached the summit after previously topping in another separate chart run in December 2019.

In 1988, "The Twist" again became popular due to a new recording of the song by The Fat Boys featuring Chubby Checker. This version reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and number 1 in Germany. In 2014, Billboard magazine declared the song the "biggest hit" of the 1960s.[5]

History

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, Midnighters member Cal Green, said they picked up the general idea from Brother Joe Wallace of the gospel group The Sensational Nightingales, whose position and its associated image concerns prevented him from recording the song himself. Many years later, in an interview with Tom Meros that is currently available online, Midnighters' member Lawson Smith recalled the authorship of "The Twist" differently, that The Sensational Nightingales' Nathaniel Bills wrote the song instead. Green and Ballard already had written a song together called "Is Your Love for Real", which was based on Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters' 1955 song "What'cha Gonna Do", so they created an entirely new song by simply putting the new Twist words to the older melody. They originally recorded a loose version of the song in a Florida studio for Vee-Jay Records in early 1958, with slightly different lyrics, featuring Green on guitar playing like Jimmy Reed. This version appeared on the box set "The Vee-Jay Story" in 1993, but it went unreleased at the time. They did not 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.

Chubby Checker version

The song became popular on a Baltimore television dance show hosted by local DJ Buddy Deane; Deane 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.[6] Checker's version featured Buddy Savitt on sax and Ellis Tollin on drums,[7] 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.[8]

In July 1960, Checker performed "The Twist" for the first time in front of a live audience at the Rainbow Club in Wildwood, New Jersey, and just weeks later, on Aug. 6, 1960, the song became a national sensation after Checker performed it on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

In late 1961 and early 1962, the twist craze belatedly caught on in high society. Sightings of celebrities doing the dance made the song a hit with adults, particularly after a report in the Cholly Knickerbocker gossip column. Soon there were long lines at the Peppermint Lounge nightclub in New York, the most popular celebrity twisting spot. This new interest made "The Twist" the first 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.[6]

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. In 1988, he joined The Fat Boys on a rap version of the song, which hit number 2 in the UK, number 16 in the US, and number 1 in Germany and Switzerland. Checker also joined the group to perform the song that summer at a London tribute concert for Nelson Mandela.[8] In addition, he recorded variations on the theme, such as "Let's Twist Again" to keep the craze alive (although "Let's Twist Again" was and has remained more popular than "The Twist" itself in the United Kingdom). Joey Dee and the Starliters, the Peppermint Lounge house band, scored a hit with "Peppermint Twist", while other artists, including Sam Cooke scored with other "Twist"-themed songs. In Europe, Petula Clark scored hits in several countries with "Twist"-themed records, while Bill Haley and His Comets recorded several albums of Twist songs in Mexico for the Orfeon Records label. In 1997, the song was featured in a Teledyne Waterpik commercial, and a commercial for Denny's in 1998, to promote the New Slams.

In the sixth episode of the second season of the TV series Quantum Leap, entitled “Good Morning, Peoria” (set in September 9, 1959), Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) and Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell) have a Kiss with History, meeting Chubby Checker (played by himself) in a radio station (Sam leaps into a radio DJ called Chick Howell), where they sing and dance "The Twist". An impressed Chubby asks, "Can I use that move?" Sam responds, "Yah, but I got it from you!"

Weekly charts

Accolades

According to Billboard, "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.[11] It has retained this honor in re-tabulated lists released by Billboard in 2013,[12] 2015[13] and for the "Hot 100 60th Anniversary" chart of Billboard's All-Time Hot 100 Top 600 Songs.[14]

The song is ranked number 451 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 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 for Faber and Faber ISBN 978-0-571-19852-8.

The song has been added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.[15] In 2014, Billboard magazine declared the song the "biggest hit" of the 1960s.[5]

In 2018, Checker's version was one of six singles inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a new category honoring singles by artists who have not been elected to the Hall.[16]

Editions
  • USA: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters: "Teardrops on Your Letter" b/w "The Twist" 1959
  • USA: Chubby Checker: "The Twist" b/w "Toot" Parkway 811; 7/60
  • USA: Chubby Checker: "The Twist" b/w "Twistin' USA" Parkway 811; 11/61

See also

References
  1. Whitburn, Joel (2000). Top Pop Singles 1955-1999. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc. p. 32. ISBN 0-89820-140-3.
  2. The Billboard Hot 100 Chart Listing For The Week Of Jul 18 1960, Billboard.com
  3. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 44.
  4. Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 20 – Forty Miles of Bad Road: Early '60s potpourri" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries. Track 2.
  5. Leight, Elias (October 27, 2014). "The Top 20 Billboard Hot 100 Hits of the 1960s". Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  6. Shannon, Bob; John Javna (1986). Behind The Hits:Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. New York: Warner Books. pp. 98–99. ISBN 0-446-38171-3.
  7. Jackson, Blair (May 1, 2007). "Classic Tracks: Chubby Checker's "The Twist"". Mix Magazine. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011.
  8. Rees, Dafydd; Luke Crampton (1999). Rock Stars Encyclopedia. New York: DK Publishing. pp. 192–194. ISBN 0-7894-4613-8.
  9. "The Top 20 Billboard Hot 100 Hits of the 1960s". Billboard. December 19, 2009. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  10. "Hot 100 turns 60". Billboard. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  11. The Billboard Hot 100 Chart 50th Anniversary, Billboard.com Archived September 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  12. "Hot 100 55th Anniversary: The All-Time Top 100 Songs". Billboard. August 2, 2013. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  13. "Greatest Hot 100 Songs & Artists of All Time: Chubby Checker's 'The Twist' & The Beatles Reign". Billboard. November 12, 2015. Retrieved November 21, 2015.
  14. "Chubby Checker's 'The Twist': The Improbable Life and Legacy of the Hot 100's All-Time Number One Song". Billboard. August 2, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  15. "Simon & Garfunkel song among those to be preserved". CFN13. Archived from the original on 10 April 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  16. Smith, Troy L. (April 15, 2018). "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame introduces new category for singles". Cleveland.com. Retrieved April 21, 2018.
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