January 13, 1962: Let's Twist Again

January 13, 1962: "The Twist" by Chubby Checker hits Number 1. It had previously done so on September 19, 1960. It was the 1st rock and roll song ever to hit Number 1 on Billboard magazine's pop music chart, then drop off the chart completely, and then get back on and rise to Number 1 again. It was only the 2nd song ever to do this, going back to the chart's premiere in 1940. The 1st was Bing Crosby's recording of "White Christmas," in 1942 and 1946.

It has often been said that Checker "stole" the song from Hank Ballard, leader of one of the top rhythm & blues groups of the 1950s, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters. Certainly, they were the 1st to record it, in 1959, and the 1st to have a hit with it, earlier in 1960. His version had stronger piano playing and drumming on it, while Checker's version emphasized horns more.

Except Ballard "stole it," too. In a 2014 interview, Midnighters member Lawson Smith said that it was written by Nathaniel Bills of The Gospel Consolaters, and had offered it to The Spaniels, famed for 2 of the classics of doo-wop, "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite" in 1954 and a 1958 cover of "Stormy Weather." But Ballard claimed ownership of the song, and has gone down in history as the writer.

Ballard claimed he was in Tampa, Florida in 1958, when he saw black teenagers doing the dance, and wrote the lyrics. He thought it would be the A-side of his next record, but his producer for King Records, Henry Glover, preferred a song he'd written himself, the ballad "Teardrops On Your Letter." So if Ballard really was screwed out of being remembered as "The Twist Man," it was Glover as much as Checker and Dick Clark who did it.

Except Glover was wrong, and Ballard was right: "Teardrops On Your Letter" went nowhere, while "The Twist" reached Number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Ernest Evans (no middle name) was born on October 3, 1941 in Spring Gully, South Carolina, and grew up in South Philadelphia. He went to South Philadelphia High School, a year behind Francis Avallone (Frankie Avalon), in the same class as Danny Rapp (lead singer of Danny & The Juniors), a year ahead of Robert Ridarelli (Bobby Rydell), and 2 years ahead of Fabiano Forte (a.k.a. Fabian).

All 5 of them would become stars on American Bandstand, then taping out of West Philadelphia for national broadcast on ABC, and hosted by Dick Clark. Evans' 1st record was a novelty song titled "The Class," in which he did impressions of a female music teacher trying to get her students to sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and then of the following singers doing so: Fats Domino, Carl Gardner (lead singer of The Coasters,) Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole and The Chipmunks (whom he called not, as correctly, Alvin, Simon & Theodore; but Ricky, Frankie and Fabian).

Before the record could be released, someone got a pressing of it to Clark, and he liked it -- the late 1950s being the golden age of novelty songs, including "The Chipmunk Song," its predecessor "The Witch Doctor," and the similar-sounding "Purple People Eater" -- enough to invite Evans onto Bandstand. But he thought "Ernest Evans," or even "Ernie Evans," was a name with not enough pizzazz. Clark's then-wife, Barbara Mallery, noticed that the 1st rocker he imitated was Fats Domino, and, noting that Evans was fat himself, suggested a play on both halves of the name: "Chubby Checker." And he was Chubby Checker from then on. Under that name, "The Class" hit Number 38, not great, but okay for a debut single.

Like a lot of Philadelphia-based performers, Checker sang at clubs on the Jersey Shore, including in Wildwood. (In 1963, Rydell would have a hit single with "Wildwood Days.") In July 1960, he began singing "The Twist" at the Rainbow Club in Wildwood. The reception was such that he went back to Philly and recorded it. It hit Number 1, and made him a superstar.

He became the king of dance records. Later in 1960, he brought back "The Hucklebuck," a hit for Paul Williams (not the Temptations singer or the short blond singer-songwriter of the 1970s), and recorded again by Kay Starr in 1956. Her version would be used on the TV show The Honeymooners.

Early in 1961, Checker hit Number 1 again, with "Pony Time." The joke was that The Pony was the same dance as The Twist, except you "horse around." Later in the year, he had a hit with "The Fly": "You've gotta shake your hands all around and around the sky, and then you buzz around the floor, you can do it if you really try." An electric razor was recorded to simulate the buzzing of a fly. And as Christmas '61 approached, he and Rydell teamed up to do a cover of Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock," backed with the two of them doing impressions of other singers singing "Jingle Bells."

But before "Jingle Bell Rock" could be released, an amazing thing happened. The Twist had caught on with grownups. The Peppermint Lounge, at 128 West 45th Street in New York, just off Times Square, had a house band named Joey Dee & The Starliters, and adults were doing The Twist to the songs they played.

A magazine article mentioned this, and cited some of the celebrities that had shown up. Music stars of the pre-rock era, like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Liberace and Noël Coward. Actresses Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Author Truman Capote. And, while she had recorded some rock records, the decidedly unhip Annette Funicello.

The article suggested that even First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and 1930s actress Greta Garbo had been there to do the dance. That was unlikely, given that, even then, Jackie was a very private person, and Garbo made life imitate art by quoting one of her well-known movie lines: "I want to be left alone."

So Checker recorded a sequel, "Let's Twist Again." It hit the Top 10. But it was soon surpassed by a re-release of "The Twist," and that song hit Number 1 for a 2nd time. And the song that knocked it off the top of the charts was "Peppermint Twist," by Joey Dee & The Starliters.

The Starliters soon appeared in a movie, Hey, Let's Twist, which turned out to be the film debut of Joe Pesci. Released exactly 1 day later, on New Year's Eve 1961, was Twist Around the Clock, with Checker, doo-wopper Dion DiMucci, and the Marcels, who had hit Number 1 in 1961 with a doo-wop cover of the classic "Blue Moon."

That was followed on April 13, 1962 by Don't Knock the Twist, with Checker, The Dovells (another Philadelphia act, who had nearly hit Number 1 with a dance record, "The Bristol Stomp"), Gene Chandler (who had just hit Number 1 with "The Duke of Earl," and singer-songwriter Linda Scott.

Checker had no problem with milking the craze for all it was worth, seeing as how anybody else who could do that was doing it. "Twistin' U.S.A." was a minor hit, "La Paloma Twist" an even lesser one, and "Teach Me to Twist" didn't hit at all. But he hit Number 10 with "Popeye the Hitchhiker" (a combination of 2 dances, The Popeye and The Hitch Hike). The Caribbean-inflected "Limbo Rock" hit Number 2. And "Slow Twistin'," a duet with Dee Dee Sharp, hit Number 3.

Sharp, 4 years behind Checker at South Philly High, had just hit Number 2 with "Mashed Potato Time." The Mashed Potato was described as "The Twist, but you stomp your feet, like you're mashing potatoes." This led to a line in a Number 1 hit later in the year, by Bobby Pickett, imitating horror-film icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi:

Out from his coffin, Drac's voice did ring.

Seems he was troubled by just one thing:
He opened the lid, and shook his fist

and said, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?"

It's now The Monster Mash.

And it's a graveyard smash.

You'll catch on in a flash

It's now The Monster Mash.

Checker had a few more minor hits, including with non-Twist dance songs, in 1963. But the arrival of The Beatles in 1964 doomed him, and doomed a lot (but not all) of the doo-woppers as well. Notable among these was Rydell, who hit Number 5 in January 1964, just before The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became their 1st Number 1 hit in the U.S. It was a great recording, showing that he really could sing, but the title backfired: "Forget Him."

The Peppermint Lounge was owned by Matty "The Horse" Ianniello, a caporegime in the Genovese crime family. A police crackdown resulted in the club losing its liquor license on December 28, 1965. A series of clubs replaced it, including a new one with the Peppermint Lounge name, which closed in 1982. The building was torn down soon thereafter. A residential building named Tower 45 is on the site of the original Lounge today, with the first few floors occupied by a parking deck. By that point, Twist fans could quote Joni Mitchell: "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."

Also by that point, all the South Philly performers previously mentioned had hit the oldies circuit. One of them, Danny Rapp, had become depressed over having to perform his 1958 Number 1 hit "At the Hop" over and over again, and committed suicide in his hotel room in Phoenix in 1983. Avalon, Rydell and Fabian frequently toured together.

In 1987, rap group The Fat Boys had one of the last true double-sided hits: They teamed up with The Beach Boys for a cover of The Surfaris' "Wipe Out," and Checker for a new version of "The Twist," which they sang at the halftime show of Super Bowl XXII.

Checker's daughter, Mistie Bass, played in the WNBA from 2006 to 2016. As of January 13, 2022, not counting individuals implied as being part of a group, like the Beatles and the performers at Woodstock, Chubby Checker is 1 of 5 people mentioned in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire" who are still alive. The others are Queen Elizabeth II, Brigitte Bardot, Bob Dylan, and 1984 New York "subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz. (UPDATE: With the death of Queen Elizabeth on September 8, 2022, Checker is now 1 of 4 still alive.)

In 1994, Mariah Carey managed to do something that few performers had done since the 1960s: Introduce a Christmas song that caught on with the general public: "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Due to a quirk in Billboard's rules, it did not qualify for the Hot 100 at that time. But it has been re-released every Christmas since. In December 2019, after a quarter of a century, the longest trip to the top ever, it hit Number 1. With the Christmas season ending, it dropped off the chart completely. But in December 2020, it was released again, and, again, it hit Number 1, joining "White Christmas" and "The Twist" as only the 3rd song ever to do this.

UPDATE: In 2025, Chubby Checker was finally elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As his version of "The Twist" was released in 1960, he had been eligible since the first class of inductees in 1986. No other performer who has yet been elected, and lived long enough to see it, has had to wait so long.

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January 13, 1962 was a Saturday. Baseball star Kevin Mitchell was born on that day. And TV pioneer Ernie Kovacs was killed in a car crash. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball and football were out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA that day:

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Packers, 135-117 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. Wilt Chamberlain scored 73 points to set a new NBA single-game record. That record would last all of 48 days, before he scored 100. He also grabbed 36 rebounds on this night.

Yes, the Philadelphia Warriors. After the season, they moved to San Francisco. In 1971, they moved across the Bay to Oakland, and renamed themselves the Golden State Warriors. They moved back to the San Francisco side in 2019, but have kept the Golden State name.

Yes, the Chicago Packers. They were a 1st-year expansion team. But Chicago fans, used to booing a football team from Green Bay, Wisconsin, called the Packers, never took to them. For the 1962-63 season, they became the Chicago Zephyrs. It didn't work. For the 1963-64 season, they became the Baltimore Bullets. For the 1973-74 season, they moved to the suburbs of Washington, and became the Capital Bullets. For the 1974-75 season, they became the Washington Bullets. In the 1997-98 season, they moved into the District of Columbia proper, and became the Washington Wizards.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 127-117 at the Rochester War Memorial Arena (now the Blue Cross Arena) in Rochester, New York. For the 1963-64 season, the Nats took the Warriors' place, and became the Philadelphia 76ers.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Detroit Pistons, 119-112 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Oscar Robertson score 39 points for the Royals. They became the Kansas City Kings in 1972, and the Sacramento Kings in 1985.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the St. Louis Hawks, 108-107 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Jerry West scored 43 for the Lakers. The Hawks moved to Atlanta in 1968.

And all of the NHL's "Original Six" were in action that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Celtics, 5-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.