Interview:
CHUBBY CHECKER

By Scott Wheeler
(originally published in The Enterprise newspaper,
Brockton, MA. USA on June 17, 1988)

Chubby Checker may not have invented the Twist, but even now, 28 summers after he launched rock and roll’s first post-jitterburg dance craze, it seems impossible to think of the Twist without thinking of Chubby.

After a 23-year hiatus from the hit parade, Chubby Checker is climbing the charts again with a new version of his 1961 blockbuster, "The Twist." The new record, which also features the Fat Boys, a top rap duo, is #79 on the Billboard charts this week, and an accompanying video is being shown regularly on MTV.

As one of Chubby’s original fans from the Twist Era, I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to conduct an exclusive newspaper interview with him. To commemorate the occasion, I phoned Chubby ifrom the cellar of my parents’ home in Waltham, Massachusetts, where, as an excited ten-year-old in 1961, I played my first Chubby Checker record on my brand-new RCA Victor record player.

The record player is still there in the cellar, its needle now worn down to a nubbin, and so is Chubby’s record. I decided they could stand one more bout of work on this special occasion. When I reached Chubby on the phone at his manager’s office in Philadelphia I cranked up the record player and played him a few seconds of "The Twist," explaining that I had first played that very record at that very spot 28 years earlier. "Wow!" Chubby exclaimed, laughing heartily.

"What has happened to Chubby Checker in the past four months has been just amazing," he told me. "The Fat Boys record is something God dropped down out of the sky for me because I’d worked so hard.

"What turns me on," he continued, "is to walk into a sold-out venue. The audiences are so much the same as they were in the ‘60s. It’s just an amazing thing. I can’t explain it, but I hope it never stops.

"When I’m onstage they know I’m honest, and I try to be as humble as I can. People come to see it, and I’m here to give it. When that magic happens, something else takes over. You need all of your health and strength, and all that you can get out of your mind."

Checker was born Ernest Evans in Philadelphia in 1941. During his high-school days "Ernie" worked as a chicken plucker at a local poultry shop, where he would often entertain customers by singing songs and telling jokes. In the evenings he sang harmony on streetcorners with his doo-wop group, Fat Ernie And The Quantrells.

One day in 1958 the wife of entertainment mogul Dick Clark (American Bandstand) happened to catch Ernie’s impersonation of musician Fats Domino. She approvingly dubbed him Chubby Checker, in homage to Fats, and helped arrange his first recording contract with Philly’s Cameo-Parkway label in 1959. His first single, "The Class," released that year, featured more of Checker’s vocal impersonations, but was only a minor hit.

Then, in the summer of 1961, Philly released Checker’s recording of "The Twist," a song originally written and recorded by R&B singer Hank Ballard as a B-side novelty dance tune, with little result. Checker’s version skyrocketed to the Number One spot in the charts in September and stayed on the charts for four months. Early in 1962, much to the industry’s surprise, the record returned to the Number One position.

"The Twist" was the first of a string of hits that kept Checker in the Top Ten for much of the next two years, as Twistmania swept the world and Checker kept up a frenzied pace in the touring circuit. Among his later hit singles were "Pony Time," "Let’s Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer)," "Dance Party," "The Fly," "Slow Twistin’" and "Limbo Rock."

During Twistmania’s brief heyday Checker put in a number of appearances at the Surf Ballroom on Nantasket Beach, south of Boston, as part of a Dick Clark tour, and performed at a variety of other Boston-area venues.

"I remember the Surf very well," Checker said. "I also remember playing at Blinstrub’s in Boston and meeting Vaughn Monroe there. I was staying in Framingham, and I had just gotten a beautiful ’61 Thunderbird convertible. I used to wash it twice a day."

In the wake of his success with "The Twist," Checker went on to promote a number of less successful dance fads, including the Pony, the Fly, and the Limbo. His run of radio hits ended in 1965, and he went on to become a fixture at rock-revival shows and nightclubs, while continuing to record new material from time to time. He also had a featured role in the film Let The Good Times Roll.

In the summer of 1987 Checker made a triumphant return to the Boston area, appearing at the South Shore Music Circus, north of Plymouth, with former American teen idols Fabian and Lesley Gore in the Golden Boys Of Bandstand rock and roll revival show. Checker’s solo spot was a remarkable tour de force that showed off his still-robust singing voice to best advantage.

He accompanied his solo hits with an impressive demonstration of fancy, James Brown-style footwork, and later joined to members of his backup band in a stunning performance of an old Moonglows doo-wop tune that gave an intriguing glimpse of the vast reserves of talent Checker is able to draw from at this time in his career.

"There have been hills and valleys," Checker said in looking back over the events of his career. "It’s like going to school. Every now and then I say to myself, ‘Whoops! I’ve graduated!’ Sometimes, during the late ‘60s, guys would say to me, ‘Chubby, why are you performing in this dump? I would say, ‘Because they called me and they invited me to be here on this day. Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, this place is the greatest spot in the world.’"

Asked what he would like to be doing in another ten years, Checker answered, "It’s funny that you would ask me about ten years from now, because my own life-planning has always been ten years ahead. I knew when I was 13 that this was what I wanted to be. Right now I feel about nine months behind where I would have liked to be at age 46. Ten years from now I’d like to be doing what I’m doing and collecting more interest.

"My outlet is my music, and it’s been this way since I was four years old. My ‘friend’ is a voice that comes out of my body. Ever see a little kid walking around talking to himself? I’m the same way. We sort things out, and listen to all kinds of music. I’m like Pee-Wee Herman riding around my house on my little bicycle, you know? I don’t bitch about anything—I’m just grateful to be on this planet. I have no enemies that I know of. I’m just the guy who makes happy."

When I complimented him on the striking pair of magenta-and-black-checkered boots he wore at the Music Circus the previous September, Checker laughed again warmly. "Those boots are my design," he said. "I want people to look at a checkerboard and think of me!"