Song of the Day 4/29: Chubby Checker, “Let’s Twist Again”

For me, the biggest surprise among this year’s inductees to the Rock Hall of Fame was Chubby Checker, who popularized the twist and several other novelty dances, and whose hit-making days ended in 1965 – or so I thought.

Ernest Evans, nicknamed Chubby, was brought up in South Philly – teen idol Fabian was a childhood friend. He was discovered singing on his job in the Italian Market and auditioned for Dick Clark of “Bandstand” fame, who took him under his wing. When Clark’s wife heard the teenager’s Fats Domino impression, she suggested that Chubby adopt Checker as a stage name, in playful homage to the R&B legend.

Checker was 18 when he recorded “The Twist,” a middling hit in 1959 for Hank Ballard, who also originated the dance. Checker’s cover roared to No. 1 in 1960, then hit No. 1 again the next year, after Checker appeared on Ed Sullivan’s show demonstrating the dance.

Checker later lamented the popularity of the twist, the dance more than the song, because a string of twist-oriented songs followed for several years, along with tunes featuring the pony, the limbo and the hucklebuck. He had been aiming for a career as a nightclub singer and wound up a dance instructor.

My favorite of all those twist-exploiting tracks was “Let’s Twist Again,” a No. 8 hit in 1961. I like the idea of people in 1961 already being nostalgic for 1960.

Checker never retired after the hits ended, and even made two more chart appearances. He hit No. 16 in 1988 when he guested on a hip-hop remake of “The Twist” with Fat Boys, then reached No. 1 on the US Dance chart in 2008 with this tune, “Knock Down the Walls.”