" Limbo Rock" reached #2 in the fall of 1962, becoming Checker's last Top Ten hit.Ĭhecker is the only recording artist to place five albums in the Top 12 all at once. A 1962 duet with Dee Dee Sharp, "Slow Twistin'", reached #3 on the national charts. Checker's follow-up "twist" single, " Let's Twist Again", won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Solo Vocal Performance.
CHUBBY CHECKER LIMBO ROCK SERIES
Chubby Checker Chubby Checker during a TV interview in 2008ĭespite Checker's initial disapproval, he found follow-up success with a succession of up-tempo dance tracks and produced a series of successful dance-related singles, including "The Hucklebuck" (#14), "The Fly" (#7), "Dance the Mess Around" (#24), and " Pony Time", which became his second #1 single.
I was on my way to becoming a big nightclub performer, and "The Twist" just wiped it out.
".in a way, "The Twist" really ruined my life. The song was so ubiquitous that Checker felt that his critics thought that he could only succeed with dance records typecasting him as a dance artist. Checker's "Twist", however, was a nationwide smash, aided by his many appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, the Top 10 American Bandstand ranking of the song, and the teenagers on the show who enjoyed dancing the Twist. " The Twist" had previously peaked at #16 on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart, in the 1959 version recorded by its author, Hank Ballard, whose band The Midnighters first performed the dance on stage. ( Bing Crosby's " White Christmas" had done so on Billboard's earlier chart.) Titled "The Class", the single became Checker's first release, charting at #38 in the spring of 1959.Ĭhecker introduced his version of "The Twist" at the age of 18 in July 1960 in Wildwood, New Jersey at the Rainbow Club, "The Twist" went on to become the only single to top the Billboard Hot 100 twice, in two separate chart runs. Clark sent the song out as his Christmas greeting, and it received such good response that Cameo-Parkway signed Checker to a recording contract. The premise allowed Checker to imitate such acts as Fats Domino, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole, and Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian Forte as The Chipmunks, each singing " Mary Had a Little Lamb". Career Ĭhecker privately recorded a novelty single for Clark in which the singer portrayed a school teacher with an unruly classroom of musical performers. As he had just completed a Fats Domino impression, she smiled and said, "As in Checker?" That little play on words ('chubby' meaning 'fat', and ' checkers', like ' dominoes', being a game) got an instant laugh and stuck, and from then on, Evans would use the name "Chubby Checker". "Well", he replied, "my friends call me 'Chubby'". It was at this recording session that Evans got his stage name from Clark's wife, who asked Evans what his name was. The store owner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by Ernest's performances for the customers that he, along with his colleague and friend Kal Mann, who worked as a song-writer for Cameo-Parkway Records, arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. It was his boss at the Produce Market, Tony A., who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". Īfter 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. One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabiano Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian Forte. He would entertain his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. By age eight Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, took piano lessons at Settlement Music School. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Mrs.
Ernest Evans was born in Spring Gulley, South Carolina.
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