American Bandstand host Dick Clark once said, "The three most important things that ever happened in the music industry are Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Chubby Checker." And while, as we shall see, Dick Clark had a bit of a proprietary interest in the last named, it is difficult not to see the impact of Chubby Checker's being the only artist to have five albums in the Top 12 at the same time; the only rock and roll artist to have a song reach #1 on the Billboard charts twice (The Twist in September 1960 and January 1962); and the only artist to have nine double-sided hits. It also goes without saying that Chubby Checker is Williamsburg County's most famous native son.
In October 1941, Ernest Evans was born in the Spring Gully community of Williamsburg County to Raymond and Eartle Evans. The Evanses would live there until 1947 when they joined the Great Migration to Philadelphia where Ernest would grow up in South Philly, attending high school with Fabian Forte, who would also go on to a career in show business under the name Fabian. Chubby Checker told a reporter in 1981, that his mother took him when he was four years old to see a child piano prodigy named Sugar Child Leonard. "I knew then that's what I wanted to do," he said.
In Philadelphia, he had two after-school jobs: one at the Produce Market and the other at Fresh Farm Poultry. Both of his bosses would play a role in his later fame. His boss at the Produce Market nicknamed him Chubby, and Henry Gott of Fresh Farm Poultry encouraged his musical endeavors. Along with a friend, Gott arranged for Chubby to do a private recording of Jingle Bells for Dick Clark to use at Christmas. While he was recording, he said that he was playing the piano and imitating Fats Domino, when Dick Clark's wife, Bobbie, heard him. She reportedly said, "From now on, we'll call you Chubby Checker." The name stuck.
In June 1959, a 17-year-old Chubby Checker, fresh out of high school, recorded the Hank Ballard song, The Twist. The president of Cameo-Parkway records was not particularly impressed, but Chubby thought there was something special about the song and promoted it non-stop. In the summer of 1960, he performed it live for the first time at the Rainbow Club in Wildwood, NJ, and a few weeks later Dick Clark invited him to sing it on American Bandstand. It swept the nation, and the rest, as they say, is history. In a 1979 interview with Rick Kogan of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chubby was asked if he wrote The Twist. He replied, "Hank Ballard wrote a song called The Twist, and I'm the guy who put a few steps to it." By September 1960, it was #1 on the Billboard Charts, and in the fall of 1961, it again entered the charts and by January 1962, it was at #1 again. It stayed at the top of the charts for a total of nine months.
A 12'x40' mural honoring Chubby Checker was unveiled in Wildwood, NJ, in 2015, a block from the site of the Rainbow Club where Chubby gave his first live performance of The Twist.
Chubby Checker went on to have 31 hits in quick succession. After The Beatles came on the scene, it seemed that his popularity waned, but Chubby continued to perform. And in 2007, his Knock Down the Walls was Billboard's Number One Dance Track. Listen to Knock Down the Walls here. In 2018, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame introduced a new category for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Singles. The Twist was rightfully one of the inaugural inductees. Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart continues to list The Twist as the Number One record of all time. You can listen to The Twist here.
Despite his fame, Chubby Checker has not forgotten his family in Williamsburg County. Until Covid restrictions curtailed travel, he regularly visited his cousins here, particularly around the July 4 holiday when the family used to hold a big reunion. For a number of years, he performed in Andrews on these visits, donating funds for the library there.
On December 10, Williamsburg County unveiled a state historic marker at the intersection of US521 and Steadfast Road, honoring Chubby Checker. The house in which he was born was located on Steadfast Road, as is the house to which the family moved before they migrated to Pennsylvania.
Chubby Checker continues to perform at age 81. He may have hinted at the secret to his longevity in the business in a July 1981 interview in the Post-Courier with reporter Jimmy Cornelison. "I sing because I like to," Chubby said. "If I make money at it, that's fine. It's just a gift, and I try to use it wisely." He went on to confess, "I'm undecided between being a kid and being a man. I want to be both, I guess. I've had them both for a long, long time. If the kid in you dies, something of the person dies."
The kid in Chubby Checker appears to still be going strong.
As for The Twist, Cornelison in the 1981 article noted, "There is something wholesomely American about the dance, and you feel it is almost patriotic to twist to the words and music of the man who started it all."
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