Welcome to MusicDayz

The world's largest online archive of date-sorted music facts, bringing day-by-day facts instantly to your fingertips.
Find out what happened on your or your friends' Birthday, Wedding Day, Anniversary or just discover fun facts in musical areas that particularly interest you.
Please take a look around.

Fact #84494

When:

Short story:

An Essex, UK, teenager claims to have set a World Record by dancing The Twist non-stop for 33 hours.

Full article:

Jeff Dexter (schoolboy) : The Twist didn't really hit Britain until Let's Twist Again came out in 1962. In with the record was a picture of the foot movements and how you were supposed to do it. So I followed the instructions and danced it with two girls in The Lyceum, which was the coolest place at that time. For men and women to dance apart, bend over backwards, twist your bum around, that was an outrage in a Mecca ballroom. These six-foot bouncers stopped me and took me to the manager, who barred me for being obscene. I was so cheeky, I told him he was wrong, this was the new dance, and it was really good for his ballroom. In the end, he agreed to let me stay on condition that I didn't do it again. I'd been filmed though, and it went out on Pathe News, so The Next Time I went back I got banned again. A week later I tried to sneak back in, and the bouncers took me straight to the manager who said, "Do you want a job?" It turned out that the band leader Cyril Stapleton had seen me on Pathe News and told the manager to find me. I was on the cover of Dance News the next week, then on Come Dancing. I was still at school, I'd just turned fifteen, and they asked me to leave and go work for the Lyceum full-time as a resident dancer.

Ian Samwell (deejay) : I was deejaying at The Lyceum at that time, and Jeff came in and he could dance the twist. People actually gathered round to watch him do it. He caused quite a sensation. I used to get him up onto the stage to demonstrate it.

Jeff Dexter : Once it really took off in Britain, it spawned all kinds of bizarre events, like Twist marathons where kids would pass out from exhaustion. One time, 1000 kids and ten bands got on a cross-channel steamer, the Royal Daffodil, at Southend and danced the Twist non-stop right across the channel to Calais.