Chubby Checker

Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock and roll singer and dancer. He is known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the Pony, with his 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time". His biggest UK hit, "Let's Twist Again", was released one year later (in 1962). That same year, Checker also popularized the song "Limbo Rock", a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics and its trademark Limbo dance. He also introduced other dance styles, such as the Fly. In September 2008, "The Twist" topped Billboard's list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained in an August 2013 update of the list. In 2014, Checker was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, and he was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025.

Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully, South Carolina. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Eartle Evans, and two brothers. By age 11, Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, Ernest had learned to play the piano a little at Settlement Music School. He entertained his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabian Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian.

After school, Evans would entertain customers at his various jobs, including Fresh Farm Poultry in the Italian Market on Ninth Street and at the Produce Market, with songs and jokes. It was his boss at the Produce Market, Anthony Tambone, who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". The owner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by the boy's performances for the customers that he, along with his colleague and friend Kal Mann, who worked as a songwriter for Cameo-Parkway Records, arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. After hearing Chubby's Fats Domino impression, Clark's wife, Barbara, suggested that Chubby be called "Chubby Checker" in homage to him.

In December 1958, Checker privately recorded a novelty single for Clark in which the singer portrayed a school teacher with an unruly classroom of musical performers. The premise allowed Checker to imitate such acts as Fats Domino, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole, and The Chipmunks, each singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Clark sent the song out as his Christmas greeting, and it received such good response that Cameo-Parkway signed Checker to a recording contract. Titled "The Class", the single became Checker's first release, charting at No. 38 in the spring of 1959.

Checker introduced his version of "The Twist" at age 18 in July 1960 in Wildwood, New Jersey at the Rainbow Club. The song went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 not just once in 1960, but yet again in a separate chart run in late 1961. The first success was attributed to teens, and the unprecedented second number-one Billboard ranking was driven by older audiences following a spirited live performance of the song by Checker on The Ed Sullivan Show, seen by over 10 million viewers. (Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" had also achieved number one twice on Billboard's earlier chart.)

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.