 Dance crazes have been a part of social dancing for sometime, in the 20th century the sales of records caused novelty dances to arise and then suddenly disappear much more frequently.
Most of these dances were picked up by a young and old generation as they were printed in the media, maybe you heard these dance songs on the radio, saw it in a movie, or even on television, most likely on American Bandstand. Although dance songs have been around since the 1920’s where you might remember the Jitterbug or the Charleston, it was not until the 1950’s to the 70’s that new dance fads appeared almost every week. You might remember the Madison, the Swim, The Mashed Potato, The Twist, The Watusi, or maybe The Hitch-hike, or the Shake. By the 1960’s dance crazes had animal names such as the Pony, the Dog, the Chicken and so on. There are fad dances which are meant to be danced individually as solo, others are partner dances, and yet others are danced in groups. The most popular dance song to this day was inspired by Rock”n”Roll music. In 1959 to the early 60’s it became the first worldwide dance craze, this song was popular among all people. This is the song that inspired dances such as the Jerk, The Pony, The Watusi, The Mashed potato, The Monkey and the Funky chicken, yet none of these songs were as popular. This song was released in 1959 and became a #1 hit in 1960 and again in 1962, to this day it is the only song to have done so. A world record was set in Deland Florida on October 11,2012 when Chubby Checker sang the song live and the crowd danced to “Let’s Do The Twist”, an estimated amount of 4,000 people twisted along with Chubby Checker, surpassing the previous Guinness World record for most people twisting in the streets at once. Find out more on these dance craze’s of the 50’s and 60’s as they will be featured on “The Little Red Rooster Show” on the all new Classic Hits Station KWMC 1490 AM. All information and known facts are by Wendy Johnson and all shows are produced by Javier Martinez. |
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