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 height, Ballard was belting, sweating, the drops pouring off his high forehead under the hot lights. He and the Midnighters did their recent hit, Finger Poppin' Time, then kicked into another up-tempo tune Ballard had written. He called it The Twist.

"I see grown men having more fun than I knew you could have,'' remembers Elliott, 63. "I see them dancing like nothing I've ever seen and doing this wonderful singing, too . . . and it killed me. That may be the best rock 'n' roll performance I've ever seen.'' This from a 40-year music veteran who has shared bills with Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers, Chuck Berry and Van Morrison.