Chubby Checker

Chubby Checker reigned as the foremost figure in the rock & roll dance phenomenon. Though dances promoted through his recordings, among them the Pony, the Fly, and the Hucklebuck, have largely slipped into oblivion, his signature release "The Twist" continues to serve as the standard for evaluating every later dancefloor sensation. He came into the world as Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gulley, South Carolina, and during high school held a position at a neighborhood poultry shop where he regularly entertained patrons by performing songs and delivering humorous remarks. Those on-the-job performances secured an audition with the local Cameo-Parkway label, which signed the emerging vocalist in 1959; following a recommendation from Dick Clark’s wife, the portly teenager was renamed Chubby Checker in a playful nod to Fats Domino.

His debut single, “The Class,” highlighted his abilities as an impressionist and achieved modest success as a novelty record, yet the follow-ups that immediately followed failed to connect. In 1960 he cut “The Twist,” a version of the 1958 Hank Ballard & the Midnighters B-side that downplayed the original’s explicit sexual elements in favor of its lighthearted appeal. The track surged to number one in the fall of 1960 and stayed on the charts for four months; after falling from view it gradually regained traction and returned to the top spot in late 1961, the only recording ever to reach number one twice with more than a year between the stays. Once “The Twist” had established him as a superstar, Checker reclaimed the summit in 1961 with “Do the Pony” and also landed in the Top Ten that year via “Let’s Twist Again,” which helped elevate the dance from passing fad to lasting staple.

Beyond 1961’s “The Fly,” his other Top Ten entries encompassed three 1962 successes—“Slow Twistin’,” “Limbo Rock,” and “Popeye the Hitchhiker.” He further appeared in two feature films, Twist Around the Clock and Don’t Knock the Twist. Altogether Checker accumulated 32 chart entries before the trend subsided in 1966; as demand for dance novelties waned he experimented briefly with folk music and settled into steady nightclub work. From the 1970s forward he became a fixture on oldies revival tours; in 1982, more than ten years after his previous studio album, he joined MCA and released the disco-flavored The Change Has Come, which yielded modest hits with the singles “Running” and “Harder Than Diamond.” In 1988 Checker reentered the Top 40 for the first time in twenty-five years through his contribution to the Fat Boys’ rap treatment of “The Twist,” and he maintained a consistent touring schedule throughout the ensuing decade.