November 19, 1962: The Paul Winter Sextet Performs at the White House

November 19, 1962: For the 1st time, a jazz group performs at the White House. It's the Paul Winter Sextet. The group is racially integrated. As far as I can tell, the performance was not recorded, either audio or video.

Although rock and roll was now the dominant form of American popular music, it's a little bit of a surprise that President John F. Kennedy liked jazz, but less so when you consider that he counted Frank Sinatra as a friend. Cheap Joke Alert: Less surprising was that he would invite a "sextet." The term has nothing to do with sex: It just means that there were six members of the group.

A saxophonist from Altoona, Pennsylvania, Winter loved the bebop form of jazz pioneered in the 1940s by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Coming out of high school, he played in the Ringling Brothers Circus Band. He formed his Sextet while studying at Northwestern University outside Chicago. Encouraged by Gillespie, Columbia Records superscout John Hammond -- whose career spanned from signing Count Basie to signing Bruce Springsteen -- signed the Sextet to Columbia Records in 1961.

He was accepted at the Law School of the University of Virginia, founded by President and classical music fan and performer (violin) Thomas Jefferson, and of which JFK's brother, new Senator-elect Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, was a graduate. But before Winter could begin his studies there, the federal government asked the Sextet to go on a goodwill tour of Latin America. The performance at the White House was a reward, and originally suggested not by the President, but by the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.

In 1967, Winter formed the Paul Winter Consort, incorporating Latin musicians and their styles into his recordings and concerts, making him a pioneer of what came to be called "world music." In the 1970s, he began adding sounds of animals in the wild as background for his performances. In 1971, the Apollo 15 astronauts took his album Road aboard the command module Endeavour to the Moon with them.

Between 1962 and 2011, Winter released 39 albums. Between 1993 and 2010, he won 6 Grammy Awards. As of November 19, 2022, he is still alive and performing, at age 83. As the sextet never had a permanent lineup, listing the others, and how long they lived, or if they are still living, would be a cumbersome task.

*

November 19, 1962 was a Monday. Actress and director Jodie Foster was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. And neither the NBA nor the NHL scheduled any games. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 4, 1963: The Kennedy Kids In the Oval Office

November 4, 1963: With First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy away, President John F. Kennedy did something she would not have allowed: He let Cecil Stoughton, the official White House photographer, into the Oval Office. He took pictures of JFK playing with his children Caroline and John Jr.

Always protective of her privacy, and her family's, Jackie didn't like it when pictures were taken of the kids, but Jack knew it helped the family's image. Both the photo of Caroline and John dancing, and John under the Resolute Desk, became icons of the "Camelot" era.

The desk was a gift from Britain's Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute, which the U.S. Navy had rescued from its own failed mission to rescue a lost ship. (The ship they were looking for was later found by another ship, but all hands they were looking for had long been lost.)

The 1,300-pound desk was created by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, probably from a design by Morant, Boyd, & Blanford. The kneehole panel that John Kennedy Jr. played in was added in 1945.

President Kennedy was assassinated 18 days later. The desk was put in storage, and later became part of a traveling exhibit of items that would later be put into his Presidential Library in Boston. But it never made it there: President Jimmy Carter asked for it to be returned to the White House, which it was, and every President since has used it. Every Presidential Library, including JFK's, has a replica of the Oval Office as it looked during his Presidency, including a replica of the desk then in use.

Interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 1997, John F. Kennedy Jr., then 36 years old, said that he didn't remember playing under the desk. He also said he didn't remember giving the salute to the coffin at the funeral, which took place on his 3rd birthday. He did say he remembered his father calling him "Sam," which he didn't like.

Apparently, it was the President yelling, "John! John!" after his son that led to John Jr. being nicknamed "John-John," which followed him for the rest of his life.

Cecil Stoughton, the photographer, was an Iowa native, and 43 years old at the time of the photos. He had also taken several photos of JFK on his yacht off the coast of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; the photo of John and Robert Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe at the old Madison Square Garden in 1962; and the photo Lyndon Johnson's swearing-in aboard Air Force One after the assassination.

From 1967 to 1973, he was the official photographer for the National Park Service. He died in 2008, and, like President Kennedy and his brothers, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

*

November 4, 1963 was a Monday. This was also the day The Beatles played the Royal Variety Show in London, in front of Elizabeth the Queen Mother. I have a separate entry for that date.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek: There would be no Monday Night Football for another 7 years. The NBA and NHL seasons were underway, but no games were scheduled for either league on this day. 

October 20, 1968: Jacqueline Kennedy Marries Aristotle Onassis

October 20, 1968: A year of shocking events hasn't run out of them yet. This one disturbed people on a level they didn't know they had.

Jacqueline Kennedy, former First Lady of the United States, widow of the martyred President John F. Kennedy, the most popular person in America, married Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping tycoon, on Skorpios, a private island that Onassis owned in the Ionian Sea.

In his 1988 book 1968 in America, journalist Charles Kaiser called it "the final shock." Kennedy fans couldn't believe that she was remarrying, especially to someone seen to be, in spite of his great wealth, a low-class person. Catholics couldn't believe she was marrying a man who was not only was divorced, but from a woman who was still alive. And people who may not have liked the Kennedys, but considered themselves to be American patriots, were infuriated that she would be living abroad with Onassis.

No one was willing to see it from her perspective. She had lost her husband, and had just lost his brother, who was both Jack's and Jackie's best friend, both to senseless acts of violence, on American soil. The great America could not protect its President or one of its Senators. Jackie had 2 small children. What was she supposed to think? That her children were safe?

This was not about love. Living abroad with "Ari," she, Caroline and John Jr. would have both financial security, about which she had always worried, personal security.

Her saintly image shattered, the woman now known as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, or Jackie Onassis, or "Jackie O," was now fair game for comedians. The NBC variety show Laugh-In had sketches showing Jackie as a flighty, free-spending fool, while Ari was oblivious to everything.

But, for the first time, the real Jackie was living on her own terms. She even took her kids and her new husband to Shea Stadium for the 1969 World Series between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles.

While they were married, they lived on Skorpios, Onassis' house in the Greek capital of Athens, Onassis' apartment in central Paris, Jackie's 5th Avenue apartment in Manhattan, Jackie's horse farm in Peapack, New Jersey, and on Onassis' yacht, named Christina O for his daughter, who was 17 at the time of the marriage. By maintaining her friendships with Bobby's widow Ethel, and the last surviving brother, Ted, Jackie remained part of the Kennedy orbit.

Aristotle Onassis died in 1975. His financial legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which dictated how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After 2 years of legal wrangling, Jackie accepted a settlement of $26 million from Christina, his sole heir, and waived all other claims to the Onassis estate. (Christina died in 1988, from a heart attack, only 37 years old.)

A two-time widow at 46, Jacqueline did not marry a third time, although, in 1980, she was often seen in the company of Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-born diamond merchant. They were together for the rest of her life. She lived mostly in New York, became a book editor, and led the effort to save Grand Central Terminal from replacement and destruction. She died in 1994, 64 years old, from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She was buried next to President Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.

*

October 20, 1968 was a Sunday. This was also the day that Dick Fosbury won the Gold Medal in the high jump at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. In so doing, he changed the event forever, using the technique that became known as the Fosbury Flop. I have a separate entry for that event.

In the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 26-10 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 29-16 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts, 30-20 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The New Orleans Saints beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16-12 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions played to a tie, 14-14 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Minnesota Vikings, 20-7 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Redskins, 41-14 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* And the Los Angeles Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, 27-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in the American Football League:

* The New York Jets beat the Houston Oilers, 20-14 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Boston Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills, 230-6 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-22 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat their arch-rivals, the Oakland Raiders, 24-10 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* And the San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 55-24 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).

The baseball season ended 10 days earlier, with the Detroit Tigers beating the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series. There were no games in the NHL. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-96 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Lakers got 36 points from Elgin Baylor, 20 from Jerry West, but only 15 from Wilt Chamberlain. The Sixers got 35 points from Hal Greer.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-88 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Rockets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 123-108 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. Elvin Hayes had 32 points and 24 rebounds for the Rockets, who moved to Houston in 1971.

And there was 1 game played in the American Basketball Association: The Oakland Oaks beat the Indiana Pacers, 144-133 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

October 16, 1969: The Mets' Miracle

October 16, 1969: Yes, the Miracle on 126th Street really happened. Was it actually a "miracle"? Not really: The Mets unquestionably outplayed the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. And while varying amounts of luck are necessary for any sports victory, the Mets pretty much made their own luck in this Series.

A crowd later listed as 57,397 -- including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, her children Caroline and John, and her 2nd husband, Aristotle Onassis -- files into "The William A. Shea Municipal Stadium" for Game 5. The skies on this Thursday afternoon are a mix of Sun and clouds, and the temperature is in the mid-60s throughout the game.

Left to right: Caroline, then, 11; John-John, 8; Jackie; Ari.

I wonder how much of the game Ari understood.

The Orioles do their best to win the game and send the Series back to Baltimore. They take a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 6th, thanks to the pitching and home run of Dave McNally, and it looks like the Series is going back to Baltimore for at least a Game 6.

Cleon Jones‚ the only Met to have hit .300 that season – in fact, his .340 remained a Met single-season record until John Olerud's .359 in 1998 – is hit on the foot with a pitch, much like the unrelated Nippy Jones of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1957 World Series. And, like Nippy, Cleon is awarded 1st base after his manager proves he was hit, by showing the umpire a shoe-polish stain on the ball.

On the official World Series highlight film, Pearl Bailey, who had sung the National Anthem,  can be seen asking if the pitch had hit Jones, and being delighted that it had, she used the slogan: "Did it hit him? Oh, it hit him! It's amazing! It's amazing!"

He is awarded 1st base, and then Clendenon hits a home run to close the Mets to within 3-2. Light-hitting 2nd baseman Al Weis ties it up with a homer in the 7th, and in the 8th, Swoboda doubles, and the Orioles uncharacteristically make 2 errors, leading to Mets 5, Orioles 3.

Koosman goes the distance. Just as the 2000 film Frequency used the '69 World Series as a major plot point, connecting the past with that film's present, so, too, does the final out link the Mets' 2 and, so far, only World Championships. The last Oriole batter is 2nd baseman Dave Johnson. Or, as he was sometimes known, Davey Johnson. And, 17 years before he manages the Mets to the 2nd title, he flies to left, where Cleon Jones is under it. At 3:17 PM -- the game took just 2 hours and 14 minutes -- that's the Mets' 1st title.

As Curt Gowdy says on NBC, "The 2-1 pitch: There's a fly ball to left, waiting is Jones, the Mets are the World Champions! Jerry Koosman is being mobbed! Look at this scene!"

Thousands upon thousands of fans ran onto the field, and took whatever souvenirs they could find, a repeat of the September 24 Division clincher and the October 6 Pennant clincher, and then some. In the locker room, both Mayor Lindsay and Pearl Bailey are doused with champagne.

Naming the Most Valuable Player of the World Series was a tough call. Koosman had won 2 games. Agee had won Game 3 with a home run and 2 sensational catches. Weis was a surprising star. In the end, though, the sportswriters decided they couldn't ignore 3 home runs, including the one that got the Mets back into the ballgame in Game 5, and awarded it to Clendenon. Formerly given out by the now-defunct SPORT magazine, in 2017, this award was renamed the Willie Mays Award.

The New York branch of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (the guys who vote for the Hall of Fame) awarded a separate Babe Ruth Award, and had just expanded its scope to cover the entire postseason (and would again in 1995). They gave it to Weis. Sports Illustrated named Seaver their Sportsman of the Year.

It had been 5 years since New York had a World Series appearance. It had been 12 years since Met fans, most of them previously fans of the New York Giants or Brooklyn Dodgers, lost their old teams. It had been 13 years since the Dodgers last won a New York Pennant, 15 years for the Giants. And it had been 14 years since the '55 Dodger title, 15 years since the '54 Giant title.

And New York was in a hell of a mess in '69, with rising crime, bad weather (the February blizzard), poverty, racial discontent, the sense that the whole world was spiraling out of control, and the feeling that Mayor Lindsay didn't know what the hell to do, with anything. But by tying himself to the Mets' World Series win, he managed to get re-elected.

If the Mets had finished 2nd to the Cubs in the new 6-team NL East, after 7 seasons of either 9th or 10th in the single-division 10-team NL, most Met fans would have gladly taken it. If they had won the Division but lost the Pennant to the NL West Champion Braves, it would have been a disappointment, but they would have gotten over it.

And if they had won the Pennant but lost the Series to the overwhelming favorite Orioles, it would have been fairly easy to take, as just being in the World Series is quite an honor – that is, so long as you don't lose it on a bonehead move or play, as the Red Sox did against the Mets in '86 (and I mean John McNamara's managerial decisions and Bob Stanley's wild pitch, not Bill Buckner's error), or as the Mets did against the Yankees in 2000 (the baserunning blunders and Armando Benitez's walk of Paul O'Neill).

The '69 Mets acted as if there was no pressure, as if the pressure was all on the other guys. It really wasn't on the Mets. They had fun. And their fans had fun. It was fun they did not expect to have. And sometimes, that's the best kind of fun of all. And that's why the win was not just glorious, but, to use the cliché, Amazin'.

It was also the last Major League Baseball game played before I was born, exactly 9 weeks later. So I was born with both the Mets and the Jets as defending World Champions.

But I still hate the Mets. But that's not why. I hate them because I'm a Yankee Fan.

For all that the Yankees have achieved, for all that the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers achieved before moving to California, for all the joy brought to the New York Tri-State Area by the Super Bowl wins of the Giants and the Jets, the Knicks' 1970 NBA Championship, and the Stanley Cups won by the Rangers, the Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils, the 1969 New York Mets remain the most beloved single-season sports team in New York history.

Nolan Ryan, who seemed like a minor figure on the team, though with a key performance in Game 3, was the last active player for the 1969 Mets, pitching until 1993.

*

October 16, 1969 was a Thursday. No other baseball games were played on this day. No football games. One game was played in the NBA: The Phoenix Suns beat the San Diego Rockets, 116-114 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Jim Fox of the Suns led all scorers with 29 points. The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971. The American Basketball Association opened its season the next day.

And one game was played in the NHL: The Minnesota North Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Gordie Howe scored a goal for the Wings, but Claude Larose scored 2 for the Stars.

Singer Wendy Wilson, daughter of Beach Boy Brian Wilson and a member of Wilson Phillips, was born on this day.

February 14, 1962: Jacqueline Kennedy's Televised Tour of the White House

Despite the color photo, the tour was broadcast in black & white.

February 14, 1962: CBS and NBC broadcast A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy. ABC broadcast it 4 nights later.

Charles Collingwood of CBS News hosted, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted the tour. Although the White House had been completely renovated during Harry Truman's 2nd term, Mrs. Kennedy wasn't happy with the furnishings, and thought there should be more historic items on hand. This special was her chance to show them off, not for her sake, or for her husband's, but for the country's. President John F. Kennedy showed up and the end, and delivered some brief remarks.

The special proved successful enough that it inspired further female-centric specials over the next 2 years, including The World of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor in London. 

*

February 14, 1962 was a Wednesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 125-112 at the old Madison Square Garden. This was in a down period for the Knicks. Marv Albert, who became a Knicks broadcaster in 1963, once said that the NBA had 9 teams at the time, and it seemed as though they only purpose of the regular season was to eliminate the Knicks from the Playoffs. But on this night, the Knicks beat the defending NBA Champion Celtics, paced by 51 points from Richie Guerin.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 119-110 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Wilt Chamberlain had 42 points and 27 rebounds for the Warriors, who moved to San Francisco the next season.

* The Chicago Packers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 125-121 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. Walt Bellamy scored 38 points and had 25 rebounds. Yes, you read that right: "The Chicago Packers." Most Chicagoans did not want to pay to see a team with the same name as the football team they hated the most, so, for 1962-63, the NBA team became the Chicago Zephyrs. That didn't make them popular, so, for 1963-64, they moved, becoming the Baltimore Bullets. Since 1997, the franchise has been known as the Washington Wizards.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the St. Louis Hawks, 130-107 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The Hawks moved to Atlanta in 1968.

* The one NBA team not in action that night was the Syracuse Nationals, who became the Philadelphia 76ers in 1963.

There were 2 NHL games played that night. The New York Rangers played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 2-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

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.

*

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.