It was 1958. A show would take place one particular evening at the
legendary
Royal Theater, in Baltimore. The group appearing that night was Hank
Ballard
& The Midnighters. They demonstrated an act on stage that received
tremendous responses from the audiences. They performed a certain step
in which they would lift one leg in the air and proceed to gyrate, in
a twist motion. In most cases, people consider this 'dirty dancing'.
Hank watched his group performed this act every night and became
inspired to write a song about it. He called it ' The Twist'. They
were signed on the Federal label but their contract expired in 58'.
Scouting for other labels, Hank went to visit Henry Stone located in
Miami and recorded some sides for him, including, the Twist. Somehow,
Vee Jay Records got hold of the tapes and Syd Nathan owner of
King / Federal Records got wind of such dealings and option a
clause in the group's expired contract and returned them back to his
label, 'King'.
With a billing that read, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, ' The Twist'
was the
first song cut under their new contract. As Hank kept pushing the
label to release The Twist as the new single, the company instead
buried the song as a B-side on a ballad entitled, ' Teardrops On Your
Letter'. During the summer of 1960, The Twist was demonstrated for the
first time on a local teen hop TV show in Baltimore called, 'The Buddy
Deane Show', by some neighborhood kids. He saw the excitement the
dance was creating and called his television colleague, Dick Clark,
who was the host of another teen hop show, ' American Bandstand', in
Philadelphia. Buddy told Dick, ' you gotta see this new dance that the
kids are doing called the Twist recorded by Hank Ballard & The
Midnighters. Dick's response was, ' I don't want to hear anything
associated with Hank Ballard because I know it's another one of those
dirty records'. Dick finally heard the recording but wanted to record
a cleaner version that would appeal to crossover audience, in other
words, the white record buyers.
Kal Mann of Cameo-Parkway Records, wanting to capitalize on the
teenage market set up a meeting with Dick Clark and wanted recruit
Freddie ' Boom Boom' Cannon to record the Twist. Freddie declined
because he had just release a new song entitled, ' Way Down Yonder In
New Orleans' and didn't want anything to interfere with it. So they
decided to get 19 year old Chubby Checker to record the song. Born
Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Philadelphia, Ernest signed with
Cameo-Parkway in 1959. He recorded
a novelty song entitled, ' The Class'. One evening at a visit to the
studio, Dick Clark and his wife Barbara at the time, stopped by to
record musical greeting cards featuring imitations of famous singers,
to give to their friends in the music industry. Ernest just happened
to be there working on his Fats Domino impersonation. Dick's wife took
one look at the young artist and quoted, ' You're Chubby Checker, just
like the singer, Fats Domino!' Chubby made
his first appearance on American Bandstand in 1959, performing 'The
Class'. It's really a great novelty song where he impersonates
popular singers at the time, such as Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, The
Coasters, and The Chipmunks.
The song went nowhere and as Chubby recorded other materials that
flopped,
Cameo-Parkway almost dropped him from the label. As fate would have
it, the label wanting to record a cleaner version of the Twist,
recruited him for the song. Because he imitated recording artists so
well, he recorded the song, clone to the singing voice of Hank
Ballard, in spring-summer of 1960. Released
during the late summer,
the dance caught on like wildfire and Chubby's version would shoot
straight to No 1 on the Pop charts on Sept 19. It would hit No 2 on
the R&B charts.
The label had simplified a way of how to demonstrate the dance so
people can
understand how to do it. Chubby used a mechanism by separating the two
partners while your feet are 3 inches apart like a boxer. Then you
began to twist your hips and feet like you're putting out a cigarette
and take both of hands and move them back and forth, like drying your
back with a towel. Chubby made his second historical appearance on
American Bandstand during the fall of 1960. He became an international
star!
King Records, now realizing their blunder, capitalized on the new
dance craze by pushing Hank's version of the Twist. It stayed at No 28
on the Pop charts while Chubby's was No 1. On the R&B charts, the song
hit No 6. Now everybody was doing the Twist!
Chubby's version of the Twist was so close to Hank Ballard's version,
it even fooled Hank! One day, while swimming in a pool in Miami, Hank
heard the song on the radio and was very overjoyed that he was
receiving airplay on white stations. After the song was over, the
announcer said that the song was recorded by Chubby Checker. Hank was
shocked! He couldn't believe it! He has said in dozens of interviews
that he was not bitter over Chubby's recording of the Twist. He quoted
that if Chubby didn't record the song; it wouldn't become as big as it
did, so he was
eternally grateful.
A dance that started in the black community, the Twist would become a
rekindle commodity for the next 3 years……………with music history in the
making!
(End of Part 1)
Materials should not be used or altered without expressed
permission of the author,
Mike Boone
(Chancellor of Soul)
Part II>>
