Chubby Checker

Although Chubby Checker didn't invent the Twist, the dance craze was his ticket to stardom. Written and recorded as a B side by R&B singer Hank Ballard, Checker's version of "The Twist" went to #1 in September 1960, stayed on the chart for four months, dropped off, and returned to #1 early in 1962. It is the only rock & roll record to enjoy two stays at #1 more than a year apart.

The young Ernest Evans worked as a chicken plucker in a local poultry shop while in high school. On the job he would frequently entertain customers by singing songs and telling jokes. Evans’ boss put him in touch with Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway label, which signed him in 1959. Shortly thereafter - at the suggestion of Dick Clark’s wife - he became “Chubby Checker” (in emulation of the similarly built Fats Domino). His first single, “The Class,” released in the summer of 1959, featured Checker doing vocal impersonations, but it was only a minor hit, and subsequent singles were even less successful.

Then “The Twist” hit. After it, Checker promoted several less successful dance crazes: the Hucklebuck, the Fly, the Mess Around, the Pony, the Limbo - even Freddie and the Dreamers’ the Freddie. His Top 10 hits included “Pony Time” (#1, 1961), “Let’s Twist Again” (#8, 1961), “The Fly” (#7, 1961), “Slow Twistin’” (#3, 1962), “Limbo Rock” (#2, 1962), and “Popeye the Hitchhiker” (#10, 1962). In December 1963 Checker married Dutch-born Catharina Lodders, Miss World 1962; he wrote “Loddy Lo” for her. His hits ended in 1965, and Checker became a mainstay on the nightclub circuit. He recorded for Buddah in 1969 and for Chalmac in 1971, with regular appearances as part of rock revival shows and a featured spot in the film Let the Good Times Roll. His early-’80s work for MCA moved toward disco, with some success (“Running” [#91, 1982], “Harder Than Diamond” [#104, 1982]), but in 1988 Checker hit the Top 40 for the first time in 25 years with a rap version of “The Twist,” featuring the Fat Boys. The song went to #2 in the U.K. After self-releasing Texas Twist in 1994, Checker was recruited by K-tel’s Bare Bones imprint, which in 1998 reissued his Halloween-themed dance single “Doin’ the Zombie.” Checker continues to perform frequently; having marketed a line of beef jerky and the Twist-a-Sizer weight-loss machine, he also dabbles in the food and exercise industries.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)