You cannot imagine how massively popular the song and the dance were at the time. I was about seven or so when it became a hit again in 1962. It was everywhere in popular culture -- music, TV, movies, news, etc. BTW: I met Hank Ballard when he appeared at a Seattle Bumbershoot festival. He invited ne on his nearby tour bus to have him and his band sign my album cover, which I still have to this day. He couldn't have been nicer. 😊
The Twist was the first of the "Dance Songs," an actual genre in the 60s. There was also "The Mashed Potato," "The Watusi," "The Swim," "The Locomotion," "The Pony," "The Hully-Gully," "The Frug," "The Jerk," The Hitch Hike," "The Monkey," "The Stomp," "The Freddy," and "The Funky Chicken" (yes that really was a dance).
Other popular Chubby Checker dance songs: The Fly, the Limbo, the Birdland, the Hucklebuck, the Mess Around. And there was a big hit by Jackie Lee called "The Duck". And there was the "Harlem Shuffle" by Bob & Earl.
I remember the twist, I was quite young, the Beatles did a song called "Twist and Shout" which did quite well here in England. It was nice and easy to do the twist so even us children could do it.
When I was a teenager in Baltimore in the 60’s, there was a very popular local dance show on everyday, kind of like American Bandstand but local. There were all kinds of dances to learn back then, like the twist, and we knew how to do them all. Haven’t heard this song in forever - brings back a lot of memories.
I love that you reacted to this! I was a little kid, and I remember being at my friends' house, Trisha and Trina, and there'd be a bunch of us dancing in the living room. One of our favorites was Chubby Checker's The Twist. My friends' mom, Katy, changed the records for us, so none of us had to stop dancing!
Two other older dance styles that were insanely popular that I haven't seen mentioned yet in all the suggestions, are the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug. Just TH-cam for those and watch some footage of it. It's pretty damn impressive. Another great Twist song that gives you even more footage of all the myriad different ways people can do the twist is Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starliters. That's the difference between this kind of dancing from (all eras) and line dancing is that people made it personal to themselves and came up with all kinds of cool moves. Also there is actually a lot more to doing the Twist than just those few instructions. While you're doing it, you tend to linger on one foot with almost all of your body weight on it, and then you rock it somewhere else. And you can go back and forth between left and right in terms of that being the weight-bearing leg, with your shoe twisting on the floor back and forth underneath you, and then you can also kind of take it forward and backwards and side to side. And once again, everyone has their own style with it As someone who has played in bands for years, and I've been lucky enough to play in bands where people come there to dance to it, I'm just endlessly fascinated and I always have been since my early twenties, just observing the way people dance and move to music, and especially if I'm one of the people on stage playing it. You can literally change what you're doing in the song slightly and people will start dancing slightly differently; you will see a wave go across the floor. But everybody is doing their unique thing. It's one of the things that gives me the most joy on this planet to be a part of.
The dance was so popular that it spawned a number of songs: “Let’s Twist Again,” also by Chubby Checker “Slow Twistin’” a duet by Mr. Checker and Dee Dee Sharp “The Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee & the Starlighters and “Twistin’ the Night Away” by Sam Cooke. Every one of these charted.
Oh, the memories that this song brings back! Everybody could do the Twist! Chubby Checker had many hits! No, it wasn't Chubby's song but he made it shine! We had Twist until you drop contests in my family! I remember catching my Grandma doing the Twist once and we had a good laugh about that for many years, her and I, she would have been too embarrassed if the rest of the family had found out! Ha!Ha!Ha! Thanks for the great memories!
I used to watch American Bandstand every Saturday to see the latest bands, dances and fashion fads. I remember going to dances with my friend because her mom was a chaperone. We thought we were hot stuff dancing with the high school kids when we were 12! I did the twist and a lot of the other dances 💙👵🏼🌻✌🏼
At grandmother’s house one holiday ,forget which, I had to run home get the 45 rpm record. Bring it back and my folks, aunts, uncles , even grandma, tried to do The Twist!
The really ground-breaking thing about the Twist - at least as I experienced it growing up in England in the 50s and 60s - was the fact it could be danced alone, without a partner. Prior to this, the firmly set tradition was that if you were a girl (as I was) you had no choice but to sit with the other girls, usually on a long row of chairs along one side of the hall/venue, and wait hopefully until a boy asked you to dance. Then, back to your seat, and another hopeful wait. If you were unlucky enough to be one of the girls who got picked last, or not at all, your humiliation would know no bounds. I remember in 1964, at the age of 12, going to a dance in the country where this system was still operating. The girls in their hopeful waiting row looked miserable and thoroughly disempowered. The boys stood around in a large group at the other end of the hall, examining us surreptitiously from a distance, joking nervously and chugging down beers until one would eventually get up the courage to cross the great divide of the dance floor to ask a girl to dance. The whole thing was excruciating. But the music was too good to sit still, and after a few minutes, I thought, 'F*** this...' and - ignoring the shocked looks and remonstrations - started dancing on my own. One by one, other girls joined me, laughing and saying, 'Well, why not?' until we'd formed a large group. And then the boys, seeing what fun we were having, came over and joined in. Suddenly the roles were reversed, with the girls now firmly in charge, leading the fun instead of waiting submissively to be invited. (And, of course, no more equally humiliating risk to the boys of having their invitation turned down and having to make the walk of shame back to their mates.) Dancing without a partner, we could be as creative and spontaneous as we liked, expressing our individuality in our movements instead of following a boy's lead. Look at any footage of audiences of the late 50s/early 60s, pre-Beatles, and you'll see people - girls and women in particular - immobile, faces frozen, afraid to move or stand out from the crowd - the pressure for conformity and an appearance of modesty/ submissiveness was sky-high, especially for girls. I believe the Beatles changed all that and the famous screaming that accompanied their live appearances was just the sound of a sort of collective catharsis as women threw off those old restrictions and for the first time expressed their joy and excitement, romantic affections and yes, sexuality, openly. But you could well say it was Chubby Checker and the popularity of the Twist that started the ball rolling in 1960, a journey that didn't end until the Beatles broke up at the end of that extraordinary decade, and John Lennon announced that 'The dream is over'...
Chubby Checker is a rock & roll singer & dancer from the 60's. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles with his songs such as "The Twist", "Pony Time", "Let's Twist Again", "Limbo Rock", "The Fly", "The Hucklebuck" etc.
When Chubby Checker came out with The Twist in 1960, although a cover of a song from a year or so before, it was a big hit because it was on American Bandstand. Plus, Chubby Checker made it fun! I was 10, and I liked it. The next time we were at my Grandma's house, and my cousin, who was a year older than me, was there, the adults heard the song come on the radio, and wanted us to demonstrate. So she and I did the twist. First time I ever did the Twist with someone else, and it got a lot of laughs. At the time, ballroom dancing was still a big deal with the older folks, unless they were dancing to country music. How do I know ballroom dancing was still big? My mother so generously forced me to take classes! Ended up I enjoyed that, too. Thanks for letting us listen to a fun song with you! God bless you!
The most classic of classic rock and roll. No track of the era is more famous. This is where I join you. I'm 64 and this came out even before I was born. Proof that great music is timeless.
One of the biggest hits in rock history. It went to #1 twice, first off when released in 1960 when it was mostly listened to by music fans and then again in 1962 after the twist dance craze had crossed over into the mainstream.
Love Chubby. Saw him in concert when I was a kid and seen him a couple more times T UT football games halftime shows. Almost everyone enjoys dancing to this, from young to elderly
The Hucklebuck is just about as good and also helps ya dance. Another good one is Joey Dee and the peppermint twist....lots of good twist songs out there...early sixties.
Look at the sheer happiness in a time when this made people so so happy. No social media, no miserable nasty comments from very very unhappy individuals who cannot bear anyone simply enjoying themselves. Wasn’t absolutely fantastic!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Anytime our family went to a party it was me and my mother on the dance floor especially to the 60's classics. I loved to dance and she instilled a rhythm that I carried through my youth. Fast forward some 15 years later in a nightclub and I'm strutting my stuff on the dance floor and I feel hands on my hips and a woman is grinding herself on me. I turn around and its this large black women who just says 'damn you got moves'. We danced all night together and had an amazing night later. Never saw her again but still remember it.
The really unusual thing about The Twist was that you could do it alone or with a partner. You didn't hold hands or touch your partner. I remember my parents saying that the teenagers weren't even dancing together and how odd they thought it was. Before that, the Jitterbug was the most popular dance, but you needed a partner to do it and were holding hands most of the time. After the Twist came all of the dances mentioned below and in almost all cases, you suddenly didn't touch your dance partner while dancing.
Chubby checker was a takeoff on the name Fats Domino-Chubby's real name was Ernest Evans. Chubby had a ton of hit songs-mostly dance tunes like Let's Twist Again, Pony Time, The Fly, slow Twisten, Teach Me How to Twist (duo with bobby Rydell)-other hits Hey bobba Needle, Lazy Elsie Molly, Rosie and Twistin Round the world.
This song and especially the dance became a worldwide phenomenon. It was the Macarena/Gangnam Style of it's day. One of the cultural significance of this dance is that it broke up couple dancing forever.
First global, viral dance sensation. Song inspired & influenced multiple generations of future-artists. Find earlier black and white TH-cam video version of this song (more raw, faster, better horns). Fat Boys were a popular, mid-80s early rap group.
I read years ago Dick Clark's wife came up with the name I believe it was because of Fats Domino who was popular back then, Fat dominos and chubby checkers
The twist was not so easy to do for older folk with less mobility. So the best dancers were very limber. It used up a lot of energy. Try the peppermint twist. In the 80's dancing was whatever you wanted to do, to the beat. Older guys, not so imaginative got dad dancing down pat. Then there was the bump, somene put out, don't wanna bump no more...
You cannot imagine how massively popular the song and the dance were at the time. I was about seven or so when it became a hit again in 1962. It was everywhere in popular culture -- music, TV, movies, news, etc. BTW: I met Hank Ballard when he appeared at a Seattle Bumbershoot festival. He invited ne on his nearby tour bus to have him and his band sign my album cover, which I still have to this day. He couldn't have been nicer. 😊
Yes and it quicky went international. Literally twisting around the world.
Yes! Chubby Checker!!! How many times did we dance to his records in the 60's 😂
The Twist was the first of the "Dance Songs," an actual genre in the 60s. There was also "The Mashed Potato," "The Watusi," "The Swim," "The Locomotion," "The Pony," "The Hully-Gully," "The Frug," "The Jerk," The Hitch Hike," "The Monkey," "The Stomp," "The Freddy," and "The Funky Chicken" (yes that really was a dance).
........and the Bop
And The Bump. And how about "The Land Of A Thousand Dances".
Other popular Chubby Checker dance songs: The Fly, the Limbo, the Birdland, the Hucklebuck, the Mess Around. And there was a big hit by Jackie Lee called "The Duck". And there was the "Harlem Shuffle" by Bob & Earl.
I think Elvis had a song called "Do the Bosanova" from Fun in Acapulco. That was from the 60s though.
And not forgetting, 'Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer)'!
I remember the twist, I was quite young, the Beatles did a song called "Twist and Shout" which did quite well here in England. It was nice and easy to do the twist so even us children could do it.
Chubby checker was the one who started this dance crazy which is still done today. It was1960 and chubby had many other hits and still performs today.
And he can't get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for crying out loud!
I remember my mom dancing the Twist in our kitchen, back in the early 60s.
When I was a teenager in Baltimore in the 60’s, there was a very popular local dance show on everyday, kind of like American Bandstand but local. There were all kinds of dances to learn back then, like the twist, and we knew how to do them all. Haven’t heard this song in forever - brings back a lot of memories.
I love that you reacted to this! I was a little kid, and I remember being at my friends' house, Trisha and Trina, and there'd be a bunch of us dancing in the living room. One of our favorites was Chubby Checker's The Twist. My friends' mom, Katy, changed the records for us, so none of us had to stop dancing!
My Grandpa even did the twist! They showed how easy it was with a towel behind your butt and my Grandpa got such a kick out of it! I was probably 7!
Two other older dance styles that were insanely popular that I haven't seen mentioned yet in all the suggestions, are the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug. Just TH-cam for those and watch some footage of it. It's pretty damn impressive. Another great Twist song that gives you even more footage of all the myriad different ways people can do the twist is Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starliters.
That's the difference between this kind of dancing from (all eras) and line dancing is that people made it personal to themselves and came up with all kinds of cool moves.
Also there is actually a lot more to doing the Twist than just those few instructions. While you're doing it, you tend to linger on one foot with almost all of your body weight on it, and then you rock it somewhere else.
And you can go back and forth between left and right in terms of that being the weight-bearing leg, with your shoe twisting on the floor back and forth underneath you, and then you can also kind of take it forward and backwards and side to side. And once again, everyone has their own style with it
As someone who has played in bands for years, and I've been lucky enough to play in bands where people come there to dance to it, I'm just endlessly fascinated and I always have been since my early twenties, just observing the way people dance and move to music, and especially if I'm one of the people on stage playing it.
You can literally change what you're doing in the song slightly and people will start dancing slightly differently; you will see a wave go across the floor. But everybody is doing their unique thing. It's one of the things that gives me the most joy on this planet to be a part of.
The dance was so popular that it spawned a number of songs:
“Let’s Twist Again,” also by Chubby Checker
“Slow Twistin’” a duet by Mr. Checker and Dee Dee Sharp
“The Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee & the Starlighters and
“Twistin’ the Night Away” by Sam Cooke.
Every one of these charted.
Oh, the memories that this song brings back! Everybody could do the Twist! Chubby Checker had many hits! No, it wasn't Chubby's song but he made it shine! We had Twist until you drop contests in my family! I remember catching my Grandma doing the Twist once and we had a good laugh about that for many years, her and I, she would have been too embarrassed if the rest of the family had found out! Ha!Ha!Ha! Thanks for the great memories!
The Twist was huge around the world! It was also great exercise! He also had the Limbo, and Lets Twist Again....
I used to watch American Bandstand every Saturday to see the latest bands, dances and fashion fads. I remember going to dances with my friend because her mom was a chaperone. We thought we were hot stuff dancing with the high school kids when we were 12! I did the twist and a lot of the other dances 💙👵🏼🌻✌🏼
At grandmother’s house one holiday ,forget which, I had to run home get the 45 rpm record. Bring it back and my folks, aunts, uncles , even grandma, tried to do The Twist!
The really ground-breaking thing about the Twist - at least as I experienced it growing up in England in the 50s and 60s - was the fact it could be danced alone, without a partner. Prior to this, the firmly set tradition was that if you were a girl (as I was) you had no choice but to sit with the other girls, usually on a long row of chairs along one side of the hall/venue, and wait hopefully until a boy asked you to dance. Then, back to your seat, and another hopeful wait. If you were unlucky enough to be one of the girls who got picked last, or not at all, your humiliation would know no bounds.
I remember in 1964, at the age of 12, going to a dance in the country where this system was still operating. The girls in their hopeful waiting row looked miserable and thoroughly disempowered. The boys stood around in a large group at the other end of the hall, examining us surreptitiously from a distance, joking nervously and chugging down beers until one would eventually get up the courage to cross the great divide of the dance floor to ask a girl to dance. The whole thing was excruciating. But the music was too good to sit still, and after a few minutes, I thought, 'F*** this...' and - ignoring the shocked looks and remonstrations - started dancing on my own. One by one, other girls joined me, laughing and saying, 'Well, why not?' until we'd formed a large group. And then the boys, seeing what fun we were having, came over and joined in. Suddenly the roles were reversed, with the girls now firmly in charge, leading the fun instead of waiting submissively to be invited. (And, of course, no more equally humiliating risk to the boys of having their invitation turned down and having to make the walk of shame back to their mates.)
Dancing without a partner, we could be as creative and spontaneous as we liked, expressing our individuality in our movements instead of following a boy's lead. Look at any footage of audiences of the late 50s/early 60s, pre-Beatles, and you'll see people - girls and women in particular - immobile, faces frozen, afraid to move or stand out from the crowd - the pressure for conformity and an appearance of modesty/ submissiveness was sky-high, especially for girls.
I believe the Beatles changed all that and the famous screaming that accompanied their live appearances was just the sound of a sort of collective catharsis as women threw off those old restrictions and for the first time expressed their joy and excitement, romantic affections and yes, sexuality, openly. But you could well say it was Chubby Checker and the popularity of the Twist that started the ball rolling in 1960, a journey that didn't end until the Beatles broke up at the end of that extraordinary decade, and John Lennon announced that 'The dream is over'...
Chubby Checker is a rock & roll singer & dancer from the 60's. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles with his songs such as "The Twist", "Pony Time", "Let's Twist Again", "Limbo Rock", "The Fly", "The Hucklebuck" etc.
My favorite dance. I am 77 years old and I still love to twist.
Every wedding, birthday, bar mitzvah we were all up twisting. I’d like to discuss the twist stitch that I’d get in my side when twisting too much! 💃🏻
Chubby's name was a take-off on Fats Domino. This was the first dance where couples weren't holding each others.
Real name was Ernest Evans.
Chubby's playing my city Mar/8th. $86.00 a ticket.Number 1 the day i was born.
When Chubby Checker came out with The Twist in 1960, although a cover of a song from a year or so before, it was a big hit because it was on American Bandstand. Plus, Chubby Checker made it fun! I was 10, and I liked it. The next time we were at my Grandma's house, and my cousin, who was a year older than me, was there, the adults heard the song come on the radio, and wanted us to demonstrate. So she and I did the twist. First time I ever did the Twist with someone else, and it got a lot of laughs. At the time, ballroom dancing was still a big deal with the older folks, unless they were dancing to country music. How do I know ballroom dancing was still big? My mother so generously forced me to take classes! Ended up I enjoyed that, too. Thanks for letting us listen to a fun song with you! God bless you!
The most classic of classic rock and roll. No track of the era is more famous.
This is where I join you. I'm 64 and this came out even before I was born. Proof that great music is timeless.
One of the biggest hits in rock history. It went to #1 twice, first off when released in 1960 when it was mostly listened to by music fans and then again in 1962 after the twist dance craze had crossed over into the mainstream.
Love Chubby. Saw him in concert when I was a kid and seen him a couple more times T UT football games halftime shows. Almost everyone enjoys dancing to this, from young to elderly
The Hucklebuck is just about as good and also helps ya dance. Another good one is Joey Dee and the peppermint twist....lots of good twist songs out there...early sixties.
Look at the sheer happiness in a time when this made people so so happy. No social media, no miserable nasty comments from very very unhappy individuals who cannot bear anyone simply enjoying themselves.
Wasn’t absolutely fantastic!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Dick Clark's wife gave him the name chubby checker. There was fats domino so she came up with the idea of calling him chubby checker.
No complicated dance moves. Just feel the music and move your hips. Best dance craze ever.
Anytime our family went to a party it was me and my mother on the dance floor especially to the 60's classics. I loved to dance and she instilled a rhythm that I carried through my youth.
Fast forward some 15 years later in a nightclub and I'm strutting my stuff on the dance floor and I feel hands on my hips and a woman is grinding herself on me. I turn around and its this large black women who just says 'damn you got moves'. We danced all night together and had an amazing night later. Never saw her again but still remember it.
The really unusual thing about The Twist was that you could do it alone or with a partner. You didn't hold hands or touch your partner. I remember my parents saying that the teenagers weren't even dancing together and how odd they thought it was. Before that, the Jitterbug was the most popular dance, but you needed a partner to do it and were holding hands most of the time. After the Twist came all of the dances mentioned below and in almost all cases, you suddenly didn't touch your dance partner while dancing.
'going waaay back to 1958' I was born in 1958😢
Young crew have absolutely no idea🙄
Chubby checker was a takeoff on the name Fats Domino-Chubby's real name was Ernest Evans. Chubby had a ton of hit songs-mostly dance tunes like Let's Twist Again, Pony Time, The Fly, slow Twisten, Teach Me How to Twist (duo with bobby Rydell)-other hits Hey bobba Needle, Lazy Elsie Molly, Rosie and Twistin Round the world.
We didn't need to go to the gym we just danced to great music
Exactly....and heaps more FUN!🎉
The twist was the only dance I could do as a teenager, and the only dance that I could pluck up the courage to ask a girl to dance with me😀
Love The Twist!!! So fun 🕺 💃 😮
This song and especially the dance became a worldwide phenomenon. It was the Macarena/Gangnam Style of it's day.
One of the cultural significance of this dance is that it broke up couple dancing forever.
Then there’s Let’s Twist Again
Better times for sure.
i may be wrong but, "lets twist again -like we did last summer" by cb came out around that time ; was very popular too.
Chubby Checker, a play off the great Fats Domino's name, popularized the twist with this now classic song!!
he has quite a few great songs.. one is called The Fly
First global, viral dance sensation. Song inspired & influenced multiple generations of future-artists. Find earlier black and white TH-cam video version of this song (more raw, faster, better horns). Fat Boys were a popular, mid-80s early rap group.
Remember hearing this on the radio before the age of reason....
The Twist makes me think of "Pulp Fiction". LOL.
Too Much FUN !!!!!
As dance songs go, the biggest I can think of before the Twist was The Stroll.
I read years ago Dick Clark's wife came up with the name I believe it was because of Fats Domino who was popular back then, Fat dominos and chubby checkers
Wow 🤩 this was fun 😃 such an amazing song💖
I was told it's like drying you butt on a bath towel while putting out a cigarette with a foot!
I won a dance contest in a grocery store parking lot doing the twist..1969..I won 25 $..
The twist was not so easy to do for older folk with less mobility. So the best dancers were very limber. It used up a lot of energy. Try the peppermint twist. In the 80's dancing was whatever you wanted to do, to the beat. Older guys, not so imaginative got dad dancing down pat. Then there was the bump, somene put out, don't wanna bump no more...
Check out the original by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. Think you'll like it more.
Gotta love the Twist!!
I did the twist with chubby checker and the fat boys doing the twist a duiet one time y'all
That was fun, thanks.
You should watch the video with just Chubby dancing though I liked this video also
Omg we had so much damn FUN! Look at all the non obese people then.
Chubby Checker and Fats Domino.
💓💓💓
👍👍💯❤️
Best music EVER!!!
Without it.... subsequent genres wouldve been boooorrring😊