That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters have a solid claim to shaping rock ‘n’ roll music; their song “Work With Me Annie” was a number one R&B hit in 1954. The bawdy lyrics (“Annie, please don’t cheat / Give me all my meat”) led to the song being banned on many radio stations, and a disgusted Dick Clark refused to play it on American Bandstand. But the people who heard it loved it so much that when one DJ joked that there was a sequel called “Annie Had a Baby,” orders poured in for it. The Midnighters obliged with a by-the-numbers song with that title, which went on to sell a million copies and spawned more answer records – “Annie Get Your Yo-Yo,” “Annie Pulled a Humbug” (“That’s not MY kid!”), and “Annie Kicked the Bucket,” to name just a few.

But that was 1954. By 1958, the hits had dried up, and Federal Records dropped the group. Ballard began shopping for a new label, using as bait a demo of a song he wrote called “The Twist.” There are multiple stories for what inspired it – teenagers dancing in Tampa, the Midnighters goofing around onstage. Whatever the inspiration, it led to Ballard writing it up in 20 minutes.

Ballard knew “The Twist” was a potential smash hit. When King Records (Federal Records’ parent company) exercised their option to pick the Midnighters up, Ballard tried to convince Syd Nathan, King’s president, to put it out as the A-side of a single. But Nathan disagreed, and stuck it on the B-side of “Teardrops on Your Letter” — written, in an unbelievable coincidence, by Henry Glover, King’s vice president. “Teardrops” did well enough, but an undeterred Ballard pushed “The Twist” in concert, getting a positive response throughout the South.

“We were doing the Twist for approximately two years before it caught on,” Ballard would say later. When the Midnighters played in Baltimore’s Royal Theatre, some of the kids who attended took it to TV. The Buddy Deane Show, later immortalized in the John Waters movie Hairspray, was a local teen dance program which was at one time the most popular local show in the United States. Deane, blown away by the zeal the kids had for the song, got in touch with his rival Dick Clark. “They’re dancin’ and not even touchin’!” he said.

Clark, remembering Ballard’s risqué songs of the past, wasn’t interested, but a persistent Deane sent Clark a copy. Clark listened to it, liked what he heard, but still thought it too suggestive. He needed a more wholesome artist to put it across to the masses, and he knew just who to ask… Philadelphia’s own Danny and the Juniors. But when the band that brought us “At the Hop” didn’t come up with anything, Clark had another idea.
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