"Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans in Philadelphia and first started singing as a way to entertain customers while working at a local poultry shop in high school. His colleagues urged him to audition with the local Cameo-Parkway label and he instantly inked a record deal in 1959, earning the moniker Chubby Checker when Dick Clark's wife suggested the nickname for the plump singer as a subtle reference to Fats Domino. Checker's first single, ""The Class,"" was a minor novelty hit but in 1960 he scored with a cover of ""The Twist,"" a 1958 Hank Ballard & the Midnighters B-side. While the original song was overtly sexual, Checker's rendition was merely happy-go-lucky and quickly topped the charts. One year later Checker returned to the Number One spot with ""Do the Pony"" and ""Let's Twist Again,"" by which time the dance was a veritable institution.Chubby Checker issued three chart-topping singles in 1962 - ""Slow Twistin',"" ""Limbo Rock"" and ""Popeye the Hitchhiker"" - and even parlayed his music success into a film career, starring in a pair of films centered on the dance he made famous (Twist Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Twist.) The interest in dance novelties began to wane in the late ‘60s, by which time Checker had issued 32 charting singles, and he resorted to the nightlife circuit, becoming a staple on oldies revival tours from the ‘70s on. In 1982 Checker signed with MCA and released a disco-inspired album, The Change Has Come, which spawned hit singles ""Running"" and ""Harder Than Diamond,"" and in 1988 he returned to the Top 40 when he appeared on the Fat Boys' rap version of ""The Twist."" Chubby Checker continues to release albums, most of them paying tribute to the twist, of course, and tours the nation delivering ‘60s dance tunes."
