The Twist (song)
Encyclopedia
"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
. His single became a 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
.
, 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. 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.
. 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. Citings 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 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. In 1988, he joined The Fat Boys
on a rap version of the song, bearing the subtitle "Yo, Twist". This version hit #2 in the UK, #16 in the US, and #1 in Germany and Switzerland. Checker also joined the group to perform the song that summer at a London tribute concert for Nelson Mandela
. 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.
In the sixth episode of the second season of Quantum Leap TV series entitled “Good Morning, Peoria” (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!".
, "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 number 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 for Faber & Faber ISBN 978-0-571-19852-8
Twelve bar blues
The 12-bar blues is one of the most popular chord progressions in popular music, including the blues. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics and phrase and chord structure and duration...
song that gave birth to the Twist
Twist (dance)
The Twist was a dance inspired by rock and roll music. It became the first worldwide dance craze in the early 1960s, enjoying immense popularity among young people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed...
dance craze
Dance Craze
Dance Craze is a 1981 British documentary film about the English 2 Tone music genre.The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness, who he met during their first US tour. Massot later changed his plans to include the whole 2 Tone movement...
. The song was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters
Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard , born John Henry Kendricks, was a rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and one of the first proto-rock 'n' roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s...
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
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. The song, and the dance the Twist
Twist (dance)
The Twist was a dance inspired by rock and roll music. It became the first worldwide dance craze in the early 1960s, enjoying immense popularity among young people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed...
, was popularized in 1960 when the song was covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker is an American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist"...
. His single became a hit, reaching number one on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
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
The Fat Boys
The Fat Boys are a successful African American hip-hop music trio from Brooklyn, New York City, that emerged in the early 1980s. Briefly, the group was known originally as the Disco 3.-Members:*Mark Morales a.k.a. "Prince Markie Dee"...
featuring Chubby Checker. This version reached number two in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and number one in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
History
Songs about doing the Twist went back to nineteenth-century minstrelsy, including "Grape Vine Twist" from around 1844. In 1938 Jelly Roll MortonJelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
, 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. 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
Jimmy Reed
Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter, notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries...
. 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
King Records (USA)
King Records is an American record label, started in 1943 by Syd Nathan and originally headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.-History:At first it specialized in country music, at the time still known as "hillbilly music." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a...
producer Henry Glover
Henry Glover
Henry Glover was an American songwriter, arranger, record producer and trumpet player. In the music industry of the time, Glover was one of the more successful, and influential, black executives. He gained eminence in the late 1940s, primarily working for the independent King label...
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 Dean; Dean recommended the song to Dick Clark, host of the national American BandstandAmerican Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
. 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. Citings of celebrities doing the dance made the song a hit with adults, particularly after a report in the Cholly Knickerbocker
Igor Cassini
Igor Cassini was an American syndicated gossip columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain. He was the second journalist to write the Cholly Knickerbocker column.-Career:...
gossip column. Soon there were long lines at the Peppermint Lounge
Peppermint Lounge
The Peppermint Lounge was a popular discotheque located at 128 West 45th Street in New York City that was open from 1958 to 1965. It was the launchpad for the global Twist craze in the early 1960s, and also where Go-Go dancing originated....
nightclub in New York, the most popular celebrity twisting spot. 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
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
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
The Fat Boys
The Fat Boys are a successful African American hip-hop music trio from Brooklyn, New York City, that emerged in the early 1980s. Briefly, the group was known originally as the Disco 3.-Members:*Mark Morales a.k.a. "Prince Markie Dee"...
on a rap version of the song, bearing the subtitle "Yo, Twist". This version hit #2 in the UK, #16 in the US, and #1 in Germany and Switzerland. Checker also joined the group to perform the song that summer at a London tribute concert for Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
. In addition, he recorded variations on the theme, such as "Let's Twist Again
Let's Twist Again
"Let's Twist Again" is a song written by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, and released as a single by Chubby Checker. One of the biggest hit singles of 1961, it reached number two in the UK and number eight on the U.S. Billboard pop chart. It refers to the Twist dance craze and his 1960 and 1961...
" 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
Joey Dee and the Starliters
Joey Dee and The Starliters is an American popular music team. Best known for their successful million-selling recording "Peppermint Twist" , the group was initiated by Joey Dee.-Early singles:...
, the Peppermint Lounge house band, scored a hit with "Peppermint Twist
Peppermint Twist
"Peppermint Twist" is a song written by Joey Dee and Henry Glover, recorded and released by Joey Dee and the Starliters in 1961. Capitalizing on the Twist dance craze and the nightclub in which Dee performed , the song hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in early 1962...
", while other artists, including Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
scored with other "Twist"-themed songs. In Europe, Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
scored hits in several countries with "Twist" themed records.
In the sixth episode of the second season of Quantum Leap TV series entitled “Good Morning, Peoria” (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!".
| Chart (1960) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard R&B Singles | 2 |
| Chart (1962) | Peak position |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard R&B Singles | 4 |
Accolades
According to Billboard MagazineBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
, "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 number 451 on the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
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
Jim Dawson
Jim Dawson is a Hollywood, California-based author and self-proclaimed "fartologist" who has written three books about farting, including the best-selling 'Who Cut the Cheese?'-Biography:...
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 & Faber ISBN 978-0-571-19852-8
Quotations
- "Come on, baby, let's do the twist!"
- "Take the world by the hand and do the twist!" - line from The Fat BoysThe Fat BoysThe Fat Boys are a successful African American hip-hop music trio from Brooklyn, New York City, that emerged in the early 1980s. Briefly, the group was known originally as the Disco 3.-Members:*Mark Morales a.k.a. "Prince Markie Dee"...
' version
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
- List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 1960 (U.S.)
- List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 1962 (U.S.)
- List of number-one hits of 1988 (Germany)
- List of number-one hits of 1988 (Switzerland)