Philadelphia ? Fifty years to the day after the release of the hip-swiveling tune “The Twist,” the man who made it famous celebrated the occasion in his hometown.

Chubby Checker performed Friday at a free noontime concert at Philadelphia City Hall. About 1,000 people joined in on the gyrations, some even invited onstage by the South Philadelphia-bred singer.

“The Twist,” released as a single on July 9, 1960, burst into the rock ‘n’ roll stratosphere after Checker performed it for Dick Clark on his Philadelphia-based “American Bandstand.”

Checker’s 1960 cover version of the Hank Ballard and the Midnighters song — released a year earlier to mild success — became a smash hit and turned the dance into a pop culture touchstone. It remains the only single to reach No. 1 on the U.S. charts during two separate runs, in 1960 and again in 1962.

The dance popularized couples dancing apart to the beat of the music, a revolutionary idea that’s now the norm, Checker said.

“When you’re on the floor dancing to Lady Gaga, Chubby Checker is there,” he said.

The trim 68-year-old singer, clad in a denim jacket and skintight jeans, performed some of his other dance-craze hits including “The Fly,” “Pony Time” and “The Hucklebuck,” a dance with some suggestive hip thrusts that Checker executed with ease.

“Back in the 60s, you couldn’t do the hucklebuck because it was nasty,” Checker told the crowd. “It’s 2010; everything’s nasty, so we’re going to do it.”