Before Youtube or MTV, there were television shows geared towards teens and adolescents. You had some avuncular adult like Dick Clark or Lloyd Thaxton introducing various songs and artists to the Boomer Generation, and we kids would dance to the songs, lip sync the lyrics and vote which was the best singer or song.
I distinctly remember Thaxton introducing a husky black kid named Chubby Checker on stage, and he proceeded to teach Thaxton (and us kids) a brand new dance called “The Twist”. Well, it certainly caught on, creating an entire genre of dances that had names, like “The Jerk”, “The Frug” and “The Pony”. This four disc, 99 song collection puts in order every song from the Top 100 the day Earnest Evans’ “The Twist” became the #1 hit in 1960, and it shows a pre-Beatles musical environment that is much richer and wider than the present day.
Sure, there are tons of Twist imitations here like Joey Dee’s “Peppermint Twist”, Gary U.S Bonds’ calypso’d “Dear Lady Twist” and even Count Basie got into the scene with “Basie Twist”. But before music got segregated as it is today, the Top 100 could include jazz groups like Dave Brubeck (“Unsquare Dance”) country crooners such as Leroy Van Dyke (“Walk On By”) and gritty soul from the likes of James Brown (“Lost Someone”) or the more R&Bish like the dark Ray Charles (“Unchain My Heart”).or the more fun “Let Me In” by the Sensations.
Of course, there are a ton of doe-eyed young crooners such as James Darren (“Goodbye Cruel World”), Ray Peterson (“I Could Have Loved You So Well”) and Bobby Vee (“Run to Him”), and the WASPY ladies aren’t under-represented with Patti Page (“Go On Home”) and Connie Francis (“When The Boy In Your Arms (Is The Boy In Your Heart)”). Best of all are all of the hip do wop groups such as The Tokens with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, Gene Chandler’s “Duke Of Earl” and also the “dangerous” guys like Elvis (“Can’t Help Falling In Love”), Gene Pitney (“Town Without Pity”) and Dion (“The Wanderer”). Like the variety shows of the day, the Top 100 had something for everyone, and this collection reminds you that each person’s “something” was something good.