The live album. A rock and roll staple — from James Brown to Peter Frampton, Elvis to Kiss.
Of course, all of the records in the early days were recorded “live” in the studio (albeit without an audience), but eventually the swing bands and jazz cats began recording concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall, or the nightclubs in Chicago and New York. Audiences generally remained quiet and attentive during the music, saving any whooping and clapping for the end, and you would hardly know it was live.
When rock and roll rose like a leviathan to swallow the world, featuring concerts with teenagers shouting and stomping from start to finish, it looked like a live album would be impossible.
The solution? An audience of adults.
Our story begins at The Peppermint Lounge, one of a thousand clubs populating New York in the late 1950s. Joey Dee and The Starliters served as the house band — a position for which they were well-suited after years of honing their craft throughout New Jersey at high school dances, weddings, and bar mitzvahs — and they got the crowd up and dancing with their blend of originals and contemporary hits.
Then, in the summer of 1960, Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” swept the nation. Both the song and the dance craze were inescapable, permeating pop culture for years. In early 1961, photographers captured actress Merle Oberon and New York socialite Prince Serge Obolensky mid-Twist and the story made the gossip columns the next day. The effects of the story were immediate.
Seemingly overnight, The Peppermint Lounge became the hottest spot in New York, and celebrities of all stripes flocked there to see and be seen twisting the night away. Police had to set up barricades to control the crowds, but if you were lucky enough to get in, you might spot Jackie Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, or whomever else might have flown into town. And Joey Dee and The Starliters provided the soundtrack.
Record companies quickly swooped in to sign Joey Dee and take advantage of the current publicity. He chose Roulette because they offered to rush release a single and Dee then teamed up with songwriter Henry Glover to quickly concoct “Peppermint Twist.” The band recorded the new song — as well as their regular repertoire — live at the Lounge. You can make out a low hubbub, but the crowd of actors, writers, and bon vivants about town was too busy dancing to stop and shout about the music
Released as a single in November of 1961, “Peppermint Twist” spun its way up to #1 two months later (replacing Chubby Checker, who was enjoying his second stint at #1 with “The Twist”). The original version of “Peppermint Twist” timed out at just over 4 minutes — a virtual “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for that era — so they cut the song in half for the single. The mostly instrumental second half appears on the B-side.
The accompanying album, appropriately titled Doin’ the Twist at the Peppermint Lounge, set the template for live albums for the next few years as artists recorded their nightclub performances to the accompaniment of sporadic handclaps and clinking glasses. It wasn’t until the British Invasion that artists started releasing albums with screaming teens front and center to add to the raucous excitement. But it all started with a little club in New York.
So 1, 2 , 3, kick, 1, 2, 3, jump….. with Joey Dee and The Starliters.
A bit of trivia and a sidenote: David Brigati performed the lead vocals on “Peppermint Twist.” His little brother Eddie joined the band a couple of years later, around the same time as keyboardist Felix Cavaliere and just before guitarist Gene Cornish — the three would then leave to form The Young Rascals.
Just a minor thing, but if you should happen to delve further into the story, please note that many other articles cite Prince Serge Oblinski as the socialite who helped kickstart the Peppermint Lounge — however, there is no such person. There is, on the contrary, most definitely a Prince Serge Obolensky. And the guy loved a dance.
