Clark saw the song's potential when he heard Hank Ballard's original version, but Ballard and his group, whose greatest hit had been "Work With Me Annie" in 1954, was considered too raunchy to appeal to Clark's teenage audience. In the 1953 song "Let the Boogie Woogie Roll", Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters sang, "When she looked at me her eyes just shined like gold, and when she did the twist she bopped me to my soul".īut the simple dance that we now know as the Twist originates in the late fifties among teenagers, and was popularized by Chubby Checker in his preparation to debut the song to a national audience on August 6, 1960, on The Dick Clark Show, a Saturday night program that, unlike disc jockey Clark's daytime American Bandstand, was a stage show with a sitting audience.ĭick Clark was a powerhouse in music at the time, thanks to American Bandstand, which ran five times a week in the afternoons, showcasing local dancers and visiting performers who lip-synched along with their recordings. In his "Winin' Boy Blues" in the late 1930s, Jelly Roll Morton sang, "Mama, mama, look at sis, she's out on the levee doing the double twist". Blues singer Bo Carter recorded "Twist It Babe" in 1931, the reference in the lyrics apparently being a metaphor for sex. But the twist at this point was basically grinding the hips. One of the early black dance crazes of the early twentieth century was the " Mess Around", described by songwriter Perry Bradford in his 1912 hit "Messin' Around" as: "Now anybody can learn the knack, put your hands on your hips and bend your back stand in one spot nice and tight, and twist around, twist around with all of your might". One of the hit songs of early blackface minstrelsy was banjo player Joel Walker Sweeney's "Vine Twist". According to Marshall and Jean Stearns in Jazz Dance, a pelvic dance motion called the twist came to America from the Congo during slavery. The use of the name "twist" for dancing goes back to the nineteenth century. The upper body sways forward and backward and the hips and shoulders twirl erotically, while the arms thrust in, out, up and down with the pistonlike motions of baffled bird keepers fighting off a flock of attack blue jays." Etymology Entire body moving forward and back and from side to side.Īccording to Time, "the dancers barely ever touch each other or move their feet. FOOT MOVEMENT: Twist feet as if putting out a cigarette. As hips move left, arms move to the right, and vice versa.ģ. MOVEMENT: Hips swivel from side to side as if rubbing oneself with a towel. STANCE: Prizefighter position, one leg extended forward, and arms extended forward from the elbow.Ģ. The moves include the mashed potato, swimming, drowning, twisting, arm swing and single leg twist.Īnother description of the moves popularized by Chubby Checker: ġ. Occasionally one leg is lifted off the floor for styling, but generally the dance posture is low and with the feet in contact with the floor with very little vertical motion. The feet grind back and forth on the floor, and the dance can be varied in speed, intensity, and vertical height as necessary. The hips, torso, and legs rotate on the balls of the feet as a single unit, with the arms staying more or less stationary. The arms are held out from the body, bent at the elbow. The torso may be squared to the knees and hips, or turned at an angle so one foot is farther forward than the other. The twist is performed by standing with the feet approximately shoulder width apart. An estimated 4,000 people twisted along with Checker, surpassing the previous Guinness World Record for most people twisting in the streets at once. Ī world record was set in DeLand, Florida, on October 11, 2012, when Chubby Checker sang the song live and the crowd danced. The dance became passé among teenagers as it became acceptable among adults and the song was re-released, becoming a number one hit again in 1962. Dick Clark, having noticed the dance becoming popular among teenagers, recommended to Cameo Records that the more wholesome Chubby Checker rerecord the song, which was released in 1959 and became a number one hit in 1960. Having seen teenagers in Tampa, Florida doing the dance, Hank Ballard wrote " The Twist", which became the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters' 1959 single "Teardrops on Your Letter". It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken, but none were as popular. From 1959 to the early sixties it became a worldwide dance craze, enjoying immense popularity while drawing controversies from critics who felt it was too provocative. The twist is a dance that was inspired by rock and roll music.
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