My musical trip, aside from the great variety of 1950s-60s records my parent bought and played at home, began in 1959. I still remember picking up Chubby Checker’s “The Twist".
My sisters already had the Hula Hoops; in one of pop history’s great chance marketing synchronizations, spinning the Hoop around your waist was an almost exact approximation of doing the Twist. And do the Twist we did. I couldn’t turn on my transistor radio without hearing “Come on, baby… let’s do The Twist” every half-hour.
The Twist is basically a mid-tempo 12-bar blues: E major, A major, B major, similar to countless other blues-based songs. But there was magic around this particular iteration of that perennial progression, some need among the populace to shake and twist. And when that populace got worn out, Checker climbed to the top of the charts again with another sinew-stretching workout, “Limbo Rock.” How low can you go? Young folks defied gravity going under that Limbo bar, while many older Americans ended up flat on their backs, much to everyone’s delight.
If Checker hadn’t followed “The Twist” with “Let’s Twist Again” and the sexy duet with “Mashed Potato” maven Dee Dee Sharp, “Slow Twistin”, he might’ve been forgotten as a one-hit dance-craze wonder. But he kept that pelvis moving, and has gyrated himself into the pantheon of greats.
In that late-1950s, early-60s golden age of AM radio, Checker was in good company: Neil Sedaka, The Four Seasons, and the Beach Boys, and shared the playlist with better songs, “Calendar Girl,” “Rag Doll,” and “Surfin’ Safari,” to name a few.
Checker, born Ernest Evans in 1941, is still performing, still on the road at 83. He’s had some gripes about the Hall of Fame that will induct him on November 8th. Due to the monumental success of “The Twist,” Checker has been eligible since the first class in 1986, and has felt snubbed. He’s put a fine point on his disgruntlement by accepting a paid gig on the night of the gala induction ceremony.
It was decades ago when Checker splashed on scene. Pre-Beatles, pre-JFK and other horrid assassinations, the Vietnam War on the precipice of becoming the hottest of the Cold War wars. A man for the hour, for the times, 1960, big guy, good-looking guy, with a smile that inspired heavy rotation, untold hip-swivels, and a hell of a good time.