The Twist

From John Capouya, author of "Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture," comes this: Ronny Elliott had an unusual Mom. Not many Southern white ladies of the 1950s were deep into rhythm and blues, yet Maxine, a switchboard operator for Peninsula Telephone in Tampa, was crazy for Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris — "race music,'' it was called.



That's how teenage Ronny came to be in the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory on Howard Avenue in 1961. It was a soul summit, with Sam Cooke the headliner and heartthrob. Elliott remembers the girls "screaming at the point of fainting'' to You Send Me. But Elliott was knocked out by Hank Ballard. A slender man of medium…