Chubby Checker

Chubby Checker (born October 3, 1941, Spring Gully, South Carolina, U.S.) is an American singer best known for his 1960 recording of “The Twist,” which topped the Billboard singles chart and sparked a national dance trend. A household name while he was still in his teens, Checker followed up with many other dance songs throughout the 1960s and performed well into the 21st century. In 2025 Checker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which called him “the undisputed king of 1960s rock & roll dance crazes.”

Early life and first singles

He was born Ernest Evans in South Carolina, but he and his family relocated to Philadelphia, where he started a street corner harmony group when he was 11 years old. He attended South Philadelphia High School and there became friends with Fabian Forte, who was also destined for teen stardom. As an adolescent, Evans worked various odd jobs, including in a produce market, where he was given the nickname “Chubby.” Later, while working at a chicken store, a friend of Evans’s boss recommended him to Dick Clark, host of the Philadelphia dance show American Bandstand, to record a cover of “Jingle Bells” for Clark to send out as a musical Christmas card. The cover version included Evans’s vocal impressions of several popular artists. Legend has it that during the recording session Clark’s wife, Barbara Clark, gave Evans the nickname “Chubby Checker,” a play on the name of rhythm-and-blues (R&B) star Fats Domino.

Checker began his singing career in earnest in 1959 after signing with the Cameo-Parkway recording label. That same year he gained some recognition for his novelty single “The Class,” which featured Checker doing impressions of such artists as Domino, Elvis Presley, and Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” “The Class” peaked at 38 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“The Twist”

Checker’s breakout hit, “The Twist,” was originally recorded by R&B singer-songwriter Hank Ballard and the Midnighters in 1959. Though Ballard’s version was popular, the song’s lyrics were considered risqué. In 2025 Checker told Variety, “I heard Hank’s song, and knew all the lyrics. It was played all the time on R&B radio, but never on pop radio to that point.” In 1960 Dick Clark asked Checker to perform the song on American Bandstand. Checker was still in high school when he recorded “The Twist,” and some music historians have speculated that Clark chose him instead of the 32-year-old Ballard because Checker would have more of an appeal to the show’s teen audience. Although both performers were African American, Clark also preferred Checker because of his lighter skin tone and boy-next-door look, according to Jim Dawson, author of The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance That Changed the World (1995).

Checker’s Bandstand performance, in August 1960, was a sensation. His recording of “The Twist” and its accompanying dance, also called the twist, were both a hit, and the track reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1960 and topped the chart again in January 1962 following Checker’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Checker’s version of “The Twist” inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to “do the twist” (as the song’s lyrics command). The dance became a mainstay move at sock hops, wedding receptions, and all kinds of parties and celebrations. It also spawned many other dances, from the pony to the swim to the mashed potato. Checker told Variety, “Little did I know that that song would change my life, and the entire industry.”

Other releases and projects

Many of Checker’s subsequent songs were twist-related tracks, including “Slow Twistin’,” “Twist It Up,” and “Let’s Twist Again,” which earned him a Grammy Award in 1962 for best rock and roll recording. He also starred in two movies related to the dance craze, Twist Around the Clock (1961) and Don’t Knock the Twist (1962). Throughout the decade Checker released many other songs about dance moves, including “The Hucklebuck,” “The Fly,” and “Limbo Rock.” His 1960 track “Pony Time” had a three-week run at the top of the Billboard singles chart in 1961.

In 1964 Checker tried his hand at folk music with Chubby’s Folk Album. He pivoted genres again in 1971 with his psychedelic funk and soul album Chequered!, released by London Records. He reportedly resisted the 1970s disco craze, despite the golden opportunity to take part in another dance movement. In 2025 he told Billboard, “Chubby Checker never left the dance floor. I used to call myself the wheel that rock rolls on, because anyone after Chubby Checker who had a song that you could dance to, they were in my world that I brought to the dance floor.…Someone once said, ‘Chubby, you want to do a disco song?’ ‘Why? I did that already.’ ”

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More than a decade later he released The Change Has Come (1982) under MCA Records. Compared to “The Twist,” none of these releases had significant success. The Change Has Come only reached 186 on the Billboard album chart, although its track “Running” cracked the Hot 100, peaking at 91. Checker returned to the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988 with “The Twist (Yo, Twist!),” a cover of his classic hit in which he collaborated with the rap group the Fat Boys.

Checker found other ways to capitalize on the twist phenomenon. He formed a snack food company, The Last Twist, Inc., in the 1990s, specializing in such items as chocolate bars, beef jerky, popcorn, and bottled water. In 2007 he released “Knock Down the Walls,” which reached number one on the Billboard Dance Single Sales chart, his first chart-topper since “The Twist” in 1962. In 2013 and 2014 Checker was involved in a legal battle with the company Hewlett-Packard over a sexually explicit third-party app, released in 2006, that used his name without permission.

Legacy

In 2008 Billboard released a list of all-time Hot 100 songs, which featured “The Twist” as number one. The song held on to that title for more than a decade until it was replaced with The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” in 2021. “The Twist” was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 and to the National Recording Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress in 2012.

Checker became eligible as an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 (the year of the first induction ceremony), but he was bypassed time and again. In 2004 he protested outside the Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony, telling reporters that he was peeved because “The Twist” and his other songs did not get enough radio airplay. He also said that there should be a photo of him to welcome visitors to the Hall of Fame (some reports say he wanted a statue). In 2025, at age 83, Checker was at last inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Personal life

In 1964 Checker married Catharina Lodders, winner of the 1962 Miss World beauty pageant. The couple have three children. Checker is also the father of former Women’s National Basketball Association player Mistie Bass.