|
|
Stage Name |
Birth Name |
| "Chubby
Checker" |
Ernest
Evans |
| Chubby
C & OD |
|
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Chubby Checker made the "Twist"
as well as a few other dances a household word or maybe the Twist
made Chubby Checker a household word, in any case, most people
think of Chubby Checker when they think of the Twist dance and
vice-a-versa. Checker became an overnight Rock and Roll sensation.
However it was not Evans who wrote that song or invented the dance.
Hank Ballard was the one who wrote and sung the song originally
while watching teenagers do the dance at a nightclub in the 1959.
There is no record of who or how this dance came to be. However
historians have traced it back to the 190's with the more blatantly
sexual, bump and grind dances which were popular in black music
halls with the Southern African-American Vernacular dancers.
Evans got his nickname "Chubby" from his boss while
in high school working part time as a chicken plucker at the Fresh
Farm Poultry store and Dick Clarke's wife deemed him his moniker
of Chubby Checker after Fats Domino (get it Checkers /Dominoes...hehe!).
He later recorded a small hit song in 1959 called "The Class."
Dick
|
Clarke
signed "Chubby Checker to record Ballard's tune called the
Twist in July of 1959 and
Fourteen months later became a No. 1 hit, not once but twice,
once in the summer of 1960 -- and then again in 1961! which is
the only song ever to be a number one hit two years in a row and
his rendition of the Dance helped spawn a new fad. Checker lays
claim to most all the dances of the 1960's, though he did not
invent any of them, he did help make many popular in his renditions
to his songs and dance style which may or may not have been as
successful with another, we'll never know, but who cares, Chubby
was the man in the early 1960's when it came to the fad dances
and songs.
What was leading the way for dances like the Twist you ask, the
answer is "the television and sand, yes Sand." Surfing
was becoming extremely popular in the late 1950's with the young
and sand was replacing the dance floors and the beach as their
dance hall. This sand
would
prove the Death Kill to any of the dances that required spinning
or traveling while promoting stationary dances, done in place
such as the Twist, Swim, Surf, Surfer Stomp, Fly, Hucklebuck,
Pony, Frug, Ska, Watusi, and Monkey.
These dancers would basically just stand in place on the beach
and dance which lead the way for The Go-Go dancers. And now that
televisions were affordably available in most homes, people could
watch shows like American Bandstand and learn these dances such
as the twist.
As of 2005, Checker still resides in Philly where he's lived since
1965, and he is still actively touring and singing many new as
well as his older hit songs everyone came to love, namely his
Twist songs that helped spawn a whole generation of music and
dance. Evans has not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame (as of 2005) and why he hasn't is beyond me, but it doesn't
really matter, Chubby Checker will survive along with the Beatles,
Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little
Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, etcetera long after the unknown members
of the Rock and Roll Hall of fame have past on. He is in the hearts
of the people and no committee can ever change that.
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