How Low Will You Go?

 

   Chubby Checker is the only artist to have a song (The Twist) go to # 1 on The Hot 100 Billboard chart in two separate years. 

   At the peak of  The Twist- Rock & Roll's 1st, youngest, hottest, dance craze - Chubby Checker became forever the, face, the forerunner, the champion of The Twist fad. Chubby Checker was/ is the icon behind it. 

   Imagine being so hot, so popular that your song, your version of,'The Twist', becomes so big, that you hit the number one spot not once, but TWICE! Once, on September 19th, 1960 and then, a whole 16 months: 16 MONTHS later, you and your song go Number 1 again! (January 13th, 1962.) 

   Chubby Checker's, The Twist, is acknowledged as the Number 1 Number One song of all time. 

   We all know The Dick Clark'- American Bandstand connection. After Ernest 'Chubby' Evans sang a cover of a Fats Domino song, so impressed was Dick Clark's wife, Barbara,that she famously suggested that Ernest become Chubby Checker. 

   Partially fueled by the new sensations of television: The Ed Sullivan Show, and Dick Clark's very popular American Bandstand, Chubby Checker and his Twist became a smash hit. 

   And this is where Chubby Checker's story makes a twist. Yes, the growing media seemed to align perfectly for Chubby Checker. It did, it really did. But, how much was this phenomenon the man, Ernest Chubby Checker Evans? 

   Just three years earlier in 1957 on Alan Freed's, The Big Show, Frankie Lymon, just by the simple fact that he was black, was shunned by his white, mostly teenage girl Tv audience.

   Shunned. The girls- coming to the show thinking he was white - shunned him. They wouldn't clap, wouldn't even dance. 

   But, now, just three years later, Chubby Checker was one of the kings of the Rock & Roll world. 

   I can still see the four or five year old me wrestling and dancing with my Mom listening to, Limbo Lower Now, Come On Everybody Do The Fly With Me, and Daddy Is Sleepin' And Mama Ain't Around. 

   Just like every other family in America.

   What do they call that? Being ahead of your time? Rising to it?

  Though Chubby Checker has a fair size of top 40, top 25, top 10 and top 5 hits (His last Number One hit being in 2008) it is Chubby Checker's influence that is exactly why Chubby Checker is deserving of a full fledged membership in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

  Speaking of influence, though low in the realm of possibilities, it's even possible that even if only on a subconscious level, I find it easy to think of John, Paul, George and perhaps Ringo sitting around thinking, 'Chubby Checker'... Buddy Holly and The crickets...what about calling ourselves 'The Beatles?'

   I know Mr. Checker is upset with The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for taking so long for his much deserved inclusion, but I wish he would rethink showing up for the ceremony. 

   So we can Twist again like we did last summer.