{"id":3076,"date":"2016-04-15T18:53:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T18:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lichen.csd.sc.edu\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/"},"modified":"2022-07-20T18:09:58","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T18:09:58","slug":"checker-chubby","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/","title":{"rendered":"Checker, Chubby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Singer. Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully near Andrews, the son of a tobacco farmer. He moved to Philadelphia at age seven and later attended South Philadelphia High School with the future teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon. Evans attracted the attention of Dick Clark, host of the national television show American Bandstand, <\/em>in the late 1950s. Clark wanted to send out a Christmas phonograph record to friends, one that consisted of holiday greetings from singers imitating rock and roll stars. Evans was in the studio doing these imitations when Clark\u2019s wife Bobbie noticed him and suggested dubbing him \u201cChubby Checker,\u201d a play on the name of the recording star Fats Domino.<\/p>\n

After the Christmas record was released commercially as The Class <\/em>in 1959 on the Cameo-Parkway label (partially owned by Clark), in 1960 Checker covered \u201cThe Twist,\u201d a song written and released previously by Hank Ballard. \u201cThe Twist\u201d was associated with a dance that consisted of partners swiveling their hips and arms while standing apart from each other. This dance was unknown outside the African American community, where it had achieved some popularity. Clark noted some of his American Bandstand <\/em>teenagers \u201ctwisting\u201d and soon encouraged Cameo-Parkway to exploit this dance with a cover recording of the Ballard song. With television exposure on American Bandstand <\/em>and on the Ed Sullivan Show, <\/em>Checker\u2019s recording of \u201cThe Twist\u201d became a huge hit and remained the biggest-selling single record of all time well into the 1970s. The associated dance craze crossed over to the mainstream and became an international phenomenon, spawning records of the same genre by many artists in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n

During the early 1960s Checker had thirty more chart hits. Eleven of these reached the top twenty, including a re-release of \u201cThe Twist\u201d in 1962 that reached number one and made Checker the only artist to have had the same single song at number one on different releases. Other hits included \u201cThe Hucklebuck\u201d (1960), \u201cPony Time\u201d (1961), \u201cLet\u2019s Twist Again\u201d (1961), \u201cThe Fly\u201d (1961), \u201cSlow Twistin\u2019\u201d (1962), \u201cDancin\u2019 Party\u201d (1962), \u201cPopeye (The Hitchhiker)\u201d (1962), \u201cLimbo Rock\u201d (1962), \u201cBirdland\u201d (1963), and \u201cLoddy Lo\u201d (1963). Many of these songs introduced new dance styles, and Checker maintains that he was the inventor of \u201cdancing apart to the beat.\u201d In 1961 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Rock and Roll Recording (\u201cLet\u2019s Twist Again\u201d).<\/p>\n

As the dance craze era ended, Chubby Checker remade his image several times to match the changes in the music industry, but he did not return to the charts until 1988, with \u201cThe Twist (Yo Twist),\u201d accompanied by the rap artists The Fat Boys. Checker has continued to tour and perform, relying on varying combinations of nostalgia and new material. He has repackaged himself as the rapper Chubby C.<\/p>\n

Chubby Checker is, to some extent, an American icon. He has sold more than 250 million records and has appeared in at least twelve films and on numerous television shows, always playing himself.<\/p>\n

Clark, Dick, and Richard Robinson. Rock, Roll & Remember. <\/em>New York: Crowell, 1976.<\/p>\n

Garofalo, Reebee. Rockin\u2019 Out: Popular Music in the USA. <\/em>2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002.<\/p>\n

Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. <\/em>Rev. ed. London: Souvenir Press, 1983.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer. Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully near Andrews, the son of a tobacco farmer. He moved to Philadelphia at age seven and later attended South Philadelphia High School with the future teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon. Evans attracted the attention of Dick Clark, host of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-3076","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-african-americans","ecms-c","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-georgetown-county","ecms-peedee","ecms-popular-culture","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-the-modern-state-1970-present","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChecker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Checker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Singer. Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully near Andrews, the son of a tobacco farmer. He moved to Philadelphia at age seven and later attended South Philadelphia High School with the future teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon. Evans attracted the attention of Dick Clark, host of the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-20T18:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/\",\"name\":\"Checker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-15T18:53:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-20T18:09:58+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Entries\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Checker, Chubby\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/\",\"name\":\"South Carolina Encyclopedia\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Checker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Checker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia","og_description":"Singer. Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully near Andrews, the son of a tobacco farmer. He moved to Philadelphia at age seven and later attended South Philadelphia High School with the future teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon. Evans attracted the attention of Dick Clark, host of the […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/","og_site_name":"South Carolina Encyclopedia","article_modified_time":"2022-07-20T18:09:58+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/","url":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/","name":"Checker, Chubby - South Carolina Encyclopedia","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-04-15T18:53:09+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-20T18:09:58+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/checker-chubby\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Entries","item":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Checker, Chubby"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/","name":"South Carolina Encyclopedia","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry\/3076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/entry"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry\/3076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28287,"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry\/3076\/revisions\/28287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}