Alvin Cash was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 singer and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Biography

Born Alvin Welch in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, and a graduate of St. Louis's Sumner High School

Sumner High School (St. Louis)

Sumner High School, also known as Charles E. Sumner High School, is a St. Louis public high school that was the first high school for African-American students west of the Mississippi River. Together with Vashon High School, Sumner was one of the two segregated public high schools in St. Louis for...

 (also attended by Luther Ingram

Luther Ingram

Luther Ingram was an American R&B and soul singer and songwriter.-Career:Born Luther Thomas Ingram in Jackson, Tennessee, his early interest in music led to him making his first record in 1965 at the age of 28. His first three recordings failed to chart but that changed when he signed for KoKo...

, Billy Davis, Jr.

Billy Davis, Jr.

Billy Davis, Jr. is an American musician, best known as a member of The 5th Dimension. Along with his wife, Marilyn McCoo, he had hit records during 1976 and 1977 with "I Hope We Get to Love in Time", "Your Love", and "You Don't Have to Be a Star "...

, and Tina Turner

Tina Turner

Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...

), he and three brothers moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where they sang and danced while in search of a recording contract

Recording contract

A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist , where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote...

. Andre Williams

Andre Williams

Andre Williams is an American R&B and punk blues musician who started his career in the 1950s at Fortune Records in Detroit.-Biography:...

 saw them perform as The Crawlers and had them record a tune, "Twine Time", which was a rewrite of Williams' 1957 hit

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 song, "Bacon Fat". The tune became a pop hit in 1965, and whereas 'The Crawlers' proper (Cash's brothers) did not play on the track, The Nightliters did contribute as the backing band. "Twine Time" became popular in the UK in the Northern soul

Northern soul

Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged from the British mod scene, initially in northern England in the late 1960s. Northern soul mainly consists of a particular style of black American soul music based on the heavy beat and fast tempo of the mid-1960s Tamla Motown sound...

 scene in the 1970s.

Soon after the success of the single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, The Nightliters changed their name to The Crawlers and began touring with Cash; they would later change their name again to The Registers.

Cash went solo after a few further singles, and recorded an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 in tribute to Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...

; he also acted in several blaxploitation

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 films, such as Petey Wheatstraw and Black Jack. He continued performing in the Chicago area into the 1990s, and died from ulcer

Peptic ulcer

A peptic ulcer, also known as PUD or peptic ulcer disease, is the most common ulcer of an area of the gastrointestinal tract that is usually acidic and thus extremely painful. It is defined as mucosal erosions equal to or greater than 0.5 cm...

complications in 1999.

Singles

• "Twine Time" (1965) US #14, US R&B #4
• "The Barracuda" (1965) US #59, US R&B #29
• "The Philly Freeze" (1966) US #49, US R&B #12
• "Mr. Penguin"
• "Unwind the Twine"
• "Keep On Dancing" (1968) US #66, US R&B #14