DESCRIPTION:
For those who like their music raw, it doesn't get much rawer than this! From August 1956, the Starliters make their first TV appearance on the program Amateur Hour. Although the blurb running across the video states that Joey Dee (that's Joey playing the sax) and The Starliters 1961 song "Peppermint Twist" made the Twist dance a national fad, that isn't entirely accurate. The Twist caught fire in 1960 after Chubby Checker released his version of Hank Ballard's earlier rendition of "The Twist." But it's certainly true the Starliters' Peppermint Twist song kept the craze going, and also helped put New York's Peppermint Lounge on the map.

Joey Dee and the Starliters would feature different members as the band evolved over the ensuing years -- at one point even including the then unknown Jimi Hendrix as their guitarist -- but there's something about this raw early performance that I find particularly intriguing!

I've been unable to accurately identify all the members of the band shown in this clip. Aside from Dee on sax, the other members were POSSIBLY Tony Seragusa on upright bass, Tony Sciuto on drums, either John Yanick, Dave McLean or Vinnie Corrao on guitar, Ernie Cassini on trumpet and Ralph Fazio on accordion and vocals. If anyone has definitive info about the identity of the members (or the name of the song they're performing) please let me know and I'll update this.