A True Story

I don't know what started it, but tonight while we were getting dinner ready (http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/pet-friendly-dog-recipes/Sensational-Salmon-Cakes) (don't be put off by the fact that they are pet friendly, they are sensational) I started doing The Twist. I asked Massiel if she had ever seen that done here. She hadn't. I did it for a little bit and then we finished cooking (by the way, I use 2 eggs, not one, and a little tiny bit extra bread crumbs.....wow). After dinner I went to You Tube to show Massiel Chubby Checker's original version, which he is shown performing on the Dick Clark American Bandstand Show The recording was made in 1960. While watching it I remembered that one night I had gone to the Peppermint Lounge with some friends, while I lived in Mount Vernon, while I was a senior in high school. That would have made it either 1961 or 1962.

Here is the Wickipedia entry for the Peppermint Lounge:

The Peppermint Lounge at 128 West 45th Street opened in 1958 and was the first rock and roll nightclub in New York City, it is also where Go-Go dancing originated in the early 1960s and where the Twist craze, that went around the world, was launched from. Sam Cooke immortalized The Peppermint Lounge in his hit song, "Twistin' the Night Away". Adult women in dresses joined teenage girls in jeans to get up on tables and the bar to dance the twist.^[1]

When the Twist craze hit, celebrities swarmed into the Peppermint Lounge: Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Liberace, Noel Coward, Frank Sinatra, Norman Mailer, Annette Funicello, even the elusive Greta Garbo. The Beatles caused a near fan frenzy in the club during first U.S. visit in 1964. The lounge was the home base of Joey Dee and the Starliters, who recorded their #1 hit "Peppermint Twist" at the venue in the early 1960s. When Joey Dee went on tour, he took a then unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix with him. Members of the Starliters later went on to form the Young Rascals. Artists including The Beach Boys, the Ronettes (who made their professional debut here in 1961), the Crystals, The Isley Brothers, Chubby Checker, Liza Minnelli, and The Four Seasons all performed at the Lounge.

What they neglect to mention, and the reason that this is memorable for me, is that another celebrity that went there was Leonard Bernstein. He was the director of the New York Philharmonic, and one of the co-authors (he wrote the music) of West Side Story. I was dancing with a girl, and he walked up to me and asked me to teach him how to do The Twist. And I did.