Chubby Checker
hubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock and roll singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including The Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters‘ R&B song “The Twist“, and the Pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song “Pony Time“. His biggest UK hit, “Let’s Twist Again“, was released one year later (in 1962); that year, he also popularized the song “Limbo Rock“, originally a previous year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics, and its trademark Limbo dance, as well as other dance styles such as The Fly. In September 2008, “The Twist” topped Billboard‘s list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained for an August 2013 update of the list.
Checker was born Ernest Evans in Spring Gully, South Carolina. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Eartle Evans, and two brothers. By age eleven, Evans formed a street-corner harmony group. By the time he entered high school, Ernest had learned to play the piano a little at Settlement Music School.