"Pony Time" is a song written by Don Covay and John Berry (a member of Covay's earlier vocal group, "the Rainbows"), and originally recorded in 1960 by Covay with his group "the Goodtimers".
It achieved greater success when it was recorded by Chubby Checker the following year, becoming his second US No.1 (after his 1960 single "The Twist"). Chubby Checker's recording of "Pony Time" was also a No.1 hit on the R&B charts.[1] In Canada it reached No. 5[2].
The lyrics reverse the Gee and Haw commands. In use by horsemen for centuries, gee was right and haw was left. Beside being used to command horse teams, Gee and Haw was used a lot in naming geographic features, like stream branches.
A reference to the new dance style is mentioned in the song "Back to the Hop" (1961) by Danny and the Juniors, and the song was featured in the 1988 film Hairspray.
The song introduced a new dance style, the pony, in which the dancer tries to look like he or she is riding a horse. The beat is 1&2, 3&4. In the dance the feet are kept comfortably together, while various arm and hand motions are possible. Movement around the dance floor may occur, but there is no line-of-dance. Couples, who generally face each other, do not touch[3] and turns and chase positions are possible.
Chubby Checker is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time". His biggest UK hit, "Let's Twist Again", was released one year later ; that year, he also popularized the song "Limbo Rock", originally a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics, and its trademark Limbo dance, as well as other dance styles such as The Fly. In September 2008, "The Twist" topped Billboard's list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained for an August 2013 update of the list.
Hank Ballard was an American singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of the Midnighters and one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. He played an integral part in the development of the genre, releasing the hit singles "Work with Me, Annie" and answer songs "Annie Had a Baby" and "Annie's Aunt Fannie" with his Midnighters. He later wrote and originally recorded "The Twist" which was notably covered a year later by Chubby Checker, this second version spreading the popularity of the dance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
The twist is a dance that was inspired by rock and roll music. From 1959 to the early sixties it became a worldwide dance craze, enjoying immense popularity while drawing controversies from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken, but none were as popular.
The Marcels were an American doo-wop group known for turning popular music songs into rock and roll. The group formed in 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and signed to Colpix Records with lead Cornelius Harp, bass Fred Johnson, Gene Bricker, Ron Mundy, and Richard Knauss. The group was named after a popular hair style of the day, the marcel wave, by Fred Johnson's younger sister Priscilla.
Cameo-Parkway Records was the parent company of Cameo Records and Parkway Records, which were major American Philadelphia-based record labels from 1956 and 1958 to 1967. Among the types of music released were doo-wop, dance hits, popular/rock, rockabilly, big band, garage rock, soul and novelty records.
ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. is an American independent record label, music publisher, and film and video production company. It owns and/or administers the rights to music by Sam Cooke, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, Dishwalla, the Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label, which includes recordings by such artists as Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, the Orlons, the Dovells, Question Mark & the Mysterians, the Tymes and Dee Dee Sharp. Until 2009, ABKCO administered Philles Records and its master recordings, including hits by the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Crystals and others. The label is infamous for its management contracts and lawsuits by its founder Allen Klein, the latter of which persisted until his death.
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" is a song written by Dave "Curlee" Williams and sometimes also credited to James Faye "Roy" Hall. The song was first recorded by Big Maybelle, though the best-known version is the 1957 rock and roll/rockabilly version by Jerry Lee Lewis.
"Bristol Stomp" is a song written in 1961 by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, two executives with the Cameo-Parkway record label, for The Dovells, a doo-wop singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who recorded it for Cameo-Parkway late that year. Appell also produced and arranged the track and his Cameo-Parkway's house band served as the studio musicians.
Donald James Randolph, better known by the stage name Don Covay, was an American R&B, rock and roll, and soul singer-songwriter most active from the 1950s to the 1970s.
"Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", sometimes "Tzena, Tzena", is a song, written in 1941 in Hebrew. Its music is by Issachar Miron, a Polish emigrant in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, and the lyrics are by Yechiel Chagiz.
"The Twist" is an American pop song written and originally released in 1958 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to "Teardrops on Your Letter". It was inspired by the twist dance craze. Ballard's version was a moderate hit, peaking at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960. On the US Billboard Hot R&B Sides chart, the original version of "The Twist" first peaked at number 16 in 1959 and at number six in 1960. By 1962, the record sold in excess of one million copies, becoming Ballard's fourth million seller.
"(Baby) Hully Gully" is a song written by Fred Sledge Smith and Cliff Goldsmith and recorded by The Olympics. Released in 1959, it peaked at number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1960 and sparked the Hully Gully dance craze.
"Never on Sunday", also known by its original Greek title "Ta Pediá tou Pireá", is a popular song written by Manos Hatzidakis and first sung by Melina Mercouri in the film of the same name, directed by Jules Dassin and starring Mercouri. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1960, a first for a foreign-language picture. The film score was first released on 1 October 1960 by United Artists Records. The song has since been recorded by numerous artists, and has gained various degrees of success throughout the world. The opening of the song bears some resemblance to that of Poinciana.
"Who Put the Bomp " is a doo-wop style novelty song from 1961 by the American songwriter Barry Mann, who wrote it with Gerry Goffin. It was originally released as a single on the ABC-Paramount label (10237).
Hairspray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is a soundtrack of the 1988 John Waters film, Hairspray.
"Let's Twist Again" is a song written by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, and released as a single by Chubby Checker. One of the biggest hit singles of 1961, it reached No.8 on the U.S. Billboard pop chart in August of that year and subsequently reached No.2 in the UK in the spring of 1962. The song refers to the Twist dance craze and Checker's 1960 single "The Twist", a two-time U.S. No.1 single.
"Limbo Rock" is a popular song about limbo dancing written by Kal Mann and Billy Strange. An instrumental version was first recorded by The Champs in 1961. The first vocal version was recorded in 1962 by Chubby Checker : it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and at number one on the Cash Box charts. The Chubby Checker recording also made it to number three on the R&B charts. In Canada it reached number 7 for 2 weeks co-charting with the B-side.
"The Stroll" is a song written by Nancy Lee and Clyde Otis and performed by The Diamonds. It reached No. 1 on the Cashbox chart, #4 on the U.S. pop chart, and #5 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1958.
"Letter Full of Tears" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Don Covay and released by Gladys Knight & the Pips as a single in November 1961. It became their second top-20 hit, peaking at number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was covered the following year by English singer Billy Fury who had a minor hit with it in the UK.
Bobby Rydell/Chubby Checker is a studio album by Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker which was released in 1960.
References
↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p.114.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
