IT may well be a while before we are allowed to go out dancing again,which is a pity. After all, you can safely practise social distancing while indulging in some of today’s dances.
It could be argued that this phenomenon can be traced back to the late 1950 and early 1960s with the advent of the Twist ... touching in no way obligatory.
Chubby Checker popularised the craze in 1960, but he owes a debt to R&B songwriter Hank Ballard, who wrote the song of the same name after having seen teenagers in Tampa, Florida doing the dance. He released it as the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters’ 1959 single Teardrops on Your Letter, before Checker rerecorded it in 1960. It went to No 1 both then and again in 1962.
The dance swept the world, and was enthusiastically take up in Glasgow. Our pictures were taken when The Twist was at No 1 for the second time – our main picture shows Betty Barclay of Anderston and Jimmy Campbell of Clydebank taking part in a Twist competition at the Locarno in October 1962. Above we feature two unnamed terpsichoreans at the Dennistoun Palais in the same year.
The Twist is still performed to this day, mainly at weddings, where dads and granddads routinely embarrass their offspring.
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