Chubby Checker
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Chubby Checker was the unrivaled king of the rock & roll dance craze; although
most of the dances his records promoted — the Pony, "the Fly,"
and the Hucklebuck, to cite just three — have long since faded into obscurity,
his most famous hit, "The Twist," remains the yardstick against which
all subsequent dancefloor phenomena are measured. Born Ernest Evans on October
3, 1941, in Philadelphia, Chubby Checker worked in a local poultry shop while
in high school, and while on the job often entertained customers by singing
and cracking jokes. His workplace antics helped win an audition with the local
Cameo-Parkway label, who signed the fledgling singer in 1959; at the suggestion
of no less than Dick Clark's wife, the portly youth was re-christened Chubby
Checker, the name a sly reference to Fats Domino.
Chubby Checker's first single, "The Class," showcased his skills as
an impressionist; while the record became a minor novelty hit, none of its immediate
follow-ups were successful. In 1960, however, he recorded "The Twist,"
a cover of a 1958 Hank Ballard & the Midnighters B-side; Checker's rendition
de-emphasized the original's overtly sexual overtones, focusing instead on the
song's happy-go-lucky charms. The single rocketed to number one during the autumn
of 1960, remaining on the charts for four months; some time after it dropped
off, it slowly returned to prominence, and in late 1961 it hit number one again;
the only record ever to enjoy two stays at the top more than a year apart. After
"The Twist" first made Checker a superstar, he returned to the top
in 1961 with "Do the Pony"; that same year, he also reached the Top
Ten with "Let's Twist Again," which assured the dance's passage from
novelty to institution.
In addition to 1961's "The Fly," Chubby Checker’s other Top
Ten hits included three 1962 smashes: "Slow Twistin'," "Limbo
Rock," and "Popeye the Hitchhiker." He even starred in a pair
of feature films, Twist Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Twist. In total,
Checker notched 32 chart hits before the bubble burst in 1966; as interest in
dance novelties dwindled, he briefly turned to folk music, and became a regular
on the nightclub circuit. From the 1970s onward, he was a staple of oldies revival
tours; in 1982, more than a decade after his last studio LP, he signed with
MCA and issued the disco-inspired The Change Has Come, scoring a pair of minor
hits with the singles "Running" and "Harder Than Diamond."
In 1988, Checker returned to the Top 40 for the first time in a quarter century
when he appeared on the Fat Boys' rap rendition of "The Twist," and
Chubby Checker continues touring regularly.
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