Sam Butera and The Witnesses - Continental Twist (1962 )

The Continental Twist - "The Continental Twist" - full title "Sam Buetera and the Witnesses", including selections from the movie "The Continental Twist" starring Louis Prima, featuring June Wilkinson and "Sam Butera and the Witnesses" - album by the American Sam Orchestra Butera And The Witnesses featuring Louis Prima, released in 1962 on Capitol Records in the US and Canada (T 1677 - mono, ST1677 - stereo), and also (with different cover) in Germany (T 1677, K 83 236).

 Since then it has never been published anywhere.

This record, although released thanks to the film The Continental Twist (1961), is not exactly a soundtrack. Half of the album's numbers are taken from the film, and the other half are popular songs and compositions of the time, including the famous Stoller-Leiber hit "Kansas City", which was also done by The Beatles.

  The film "Continental Twist" was also released under the title Twist All Night, that is, "Twist all night." The film was shot at the peak of the twist dance fashion and best reflects this era. It played as big a role in popularizing the twist as Saturday Night Fever did in popularizing disco. The trailer demonstrates this well: "The cops are twisting. The kids are twisting. Everyone in the world is twisting."

The Continental Twist is a typical musical film, where the plot plays a secondary role in order to tie together the songs and dances. Musical comedy or humorous musical. Club impresario Louis Evans, played by Louis Prima, suddenly learns that his jazz band, led by Sam Butera, is being kicked out of the nightclub where they regularly performed. In order to stay afloat, they begin play the twist. As the play progresses, Louis Evans-Prima accidentally interferes and disrupts the pattern of thieves who specialize in stealing works of art.

Louis Evans' girlfriend is played by English top model and actress June Wilkinson. She was the most photographed woman in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including her famed nudity for Playboy magazine in the sixties. She was called "the most photographed naked in America" because she starred in seven Playboy sessions and fifty other men's magazines in the sixties.

Sam Butera plays himself, that is, a musician with his orchestra, The Witnesses. His girlfriend is played by American actress Gertrude Michael, best known for her role as Rita Ross in the 1934 film Murder at the Vanities, in which she sings the ode to marijuana "Sweet Marijuana." Prohibition of marijuana at the time varied by state, with some states, for example, requiring doctors to prescribe it as a medicine. In general, until the hippie era and the mid-1960s, few people knew what it was. For example, the famous actress Kitty Carlisle, who made her debut in the same film Murder at the Vanities, thought that this song glorified some kind of Mexican musical instrument...

The album The Continental Twist reflects the era in the same way, it is lushly orchestrated music, half instrumental, half with the most cheerful vocals of Louis Prima, very high quality, by the way, recorded and produced for its time.

FULL MOVIE! Louis Prima in Twist All Night (1961)

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Sam Butera and The Witnesses 

 Continental Twist (1962 )

 01. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - The Continental Twist 

 02. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Come And Do The Twist 

 03. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Kansas City 

 04. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Better Twist Now Baby 

 05. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Skinny Minny 

 06. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Perdido 

 07. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Chantilly Lace 

 08. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Tag That Twistin´ Dolly 

 09. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Twistin´ The Blues 

 10. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Honey Love 

 11. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Rock-A Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody 

 12. Sam Butera And The Witnesses - Oh Ma-Ma Twist 

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