Let's Twist again
Fifty years ago, a new dance craze swept the world and changed for ever the way people move.
The birth of the Twist came when Hank Ballard and The Midnighters modified the melody and chords of the gospel original to fit the conventional 12-bar blues structure.
Chubby Checker at the Crescendo nightclub in Los Angeles in 1961.
1962, Sophia Loren demonstrates the Twist at the Saint-Maurice studios with her teacher Regine.
By the late summer of 1961, Manhattan’s Peppermint Lounge had become the epicentre of the Twist craze, attracting the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Truman Capote. Its doormen were bribed to get celebrities in
A 12-hour cross-channel Twisting session aboard the steamer Royal Daffodil.