The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
ALVIN CASH &
THE CRAWLERS
“TWINE TIME”
(Andre Williams, Verlie Rice) Mar-V-Lus 6002
No. 14 February 20, 1965
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Alvin Cash and his eight brothers and sisters attended Sumner High in St. Louis; fellow classmates
included Luther Ingram, Billy Davis (later of the Fifth Dimension), and Annie Mae Bullocks–a. k. a. Tina
Turner. “I used to sit behind Tina and kick my knee in her butt all the time,” Cash confessed to Chicago
Sun-Times writer Dave Hoekstra. “She’d turn around and say ‘Alvin Cash, would you cut that out!…'”
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Around 1960, Alvin (b. Alvin Welch, Feb. 15, 1939, St. Louis) formed a song-and-dance act with three of
his brothers, Arthur, George, and Robert, then aged eight to ten. “I danced pretty good in school,” Cash
told Goldmine’s Robert Pruter, “and I wanted us to be the world’s greatest dance act–tap soft-shoe, flash,
all of it.” As the Crawlers, they did their stuff in town and across the river in East St. Louis. In 1963, Alvin
trekked to Chicago to see if his act could cut a record.
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Andre Williams (now a “Last Man Standing” legend; who had scored an R & B hit in 1957 with “Bacon Fat”)
was a producer and talent scout for George Learner’s One-derfui/Mar-V-Lus/M-Pac labels. Williams had
caught the brothers’ bit, and approached Cash about yelling some lines on a new dance disk he was
planning called “The Twine.” Cash came in with the Nightlighters, a band he was touring with at the time.
This back-up unit subsequently changed its name to the Crawlers, and later, to the Registers.
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“Twine Time” was a pleasantly crude instrumental with an unstoppably funky groove; sales of the disk came
close to a million. Flush with solo success–hopefully, cash, too– Cash shelved his brothers’ dance act and
continued to cash in on dance disks: “The Barracuda” (#59, 1965), “The Penguin,” “The Philly Freeze”
(#49, 1966), “Alvin’s Boo-Ga Loo” (#74, 1966), “The Boston Monkey,” “The Charge,” “The Creep,” and
“Keep On Dancing” (#68, 1968). Alvin even recorded a number of Muhammad Ali tributes: “Doin’ The Ali
Shuffle,” “Ali Part 1 & 2” and the hard-to-find Alvin Cash Does The Greatest Hits of Muhammad Ali (1980).
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The years have passed, but Alvin is still dancin’. Over the years, he has had bit-part appearances in 1978s’
The Buddy Holly Story (as a member of the Five Satins) and in a number of black action flicks like Black
Jack and Peetie Wheatstraw, The Devil’s Son-in-Law. Obscure disks with titles like “You Shot Me Through
The Grease” and “Funky Washing Machine” still find their way into a handful of record stores.
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Alvin Cash currently lives above a pool hall in Chicago, and works as the head of promotion for Triple T
Records.