The Twist was the dance to do if you couldn’t dance.

It was easy. You stood on one spot, facing but not touching your partner, putting one foot forward and with the other making a motion like stubbing out a cigarette with your toe, your arms would be moving at your sides, as if you were drying your back with a towel and you would swivel your hips until you got out of breath.

In 1960, when Chubby Checker popularised Hank Ballard’s song, the Twist became the world’s biggest dance craze ever and became a revolution.

This album, released on the Columbia label in the UK is not just a selection of Chubby’s Twist hits but contains some of his other dance hits, Limbo Rock, Pony Time, The Hucklebuck and many more.

The Twist was recorded by Hank Ballard and The Midnighters in 1958, they had a hit with ‘Teardrops on Your Pillow’ the flip side featured ‘The Twist.

The dance became a worldwide phenomenon, almost immediately every record release had the word Twist in the title, you may remember ‘Twistin’ The Night Away by Sam Cooke, even the Beatles with ‘Twist and Shout’.

In the USA, Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starlighters had a huge hit, also had a residency at the Peppermint Lounge, a venue in Manhattan that was frequented by every celebrity of the time, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe even John Wayne, as many as 1,000 customers turned up every night, many had to be turned away.

The Twist/Let’s Twist Again have been featured in the UK pop charts on three seperate occasions, lastly in 1975. Sales are in excess of 15 million copies.

It was a personal favourite of the Queen, there is a picture of her dancing in the grounds of Balmoral Castle on 27th August 1962 which is still widely available while attending an afternoon picnic, even today, at dinner dance disco functions, the Twist is still a floor filler, even the young folk get up and give it a go!

Hank Ballard was floating in a swimming pool in Miami, Florida when he heard Chubby’s song on the radio, it was so carefully copied from his original version that Hank thought he was listening to himself.

Hank Ballard’s royalties over the years have amounted to a tidy sum, which no doubt have softened the blow.

n Let’s Twist Again by Chubby Checker, released on Cameo-Parkway records in 1967. Value £40/45