Rant #1,525: Chubby and "The Twist"

This past weekend, Chubby Checker had another birthday.

And with another birthday comes another year that this guy is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

How can that be? The guy who made "The Twist" a national obsession is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

The guy who had many, many other hits along with "The Twist," but remains out of that place in Cleveland?

Yes, very true.

Chubby Checker--real name Ernest Evans--is not in his rightful place in that poor excuse for a Hall of Fame, a place where he and many others are excluded for one reason or another, chiefly among them, the musical tastes of the person that runs the place, Rolling Stone Magazine founder Jan Wenner.

He has no use for certain music, and evidently, the heights that Checker reached during his prime years are of little or no concern to Wenner.

And that is a shame, because if you are of a certain age, you remember the greatest dance craze and how it captivated the world.

There have been many, many dance crazes since the birth of rock and roll--the frug, the duck, heck, even "The Freddy"--a song that Checker actually recorded himself after Freddie and the Dreamers had a hit with it--but there has been nothing like "The Twist."

If I remember correctly, it was originally recorded by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as something of a throwaway tune.

Checker took it, made it something more than a throwaway, and the rest is history.

Everyone was doing it--from kids in wheelchairs in hospitals to Jackie Kennedy in the White House--that you can rightly say that it became a worldwide phenomenon.

You didn't have to do much, just basically shake your body from side to side with your arms arched back and forth, so even people with limited movement could do it.

"The Twist" was an absolute sensation, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard charts not just once, but twice--the only song that has ever done that, first in 1960 and than in 1961.

There were variations on Checker's "Twist," including "The Peppermint Twist" by Joey Dee and the Starliters, but there was only one "The Twist."

It became such a sensation that the mere inclusion of the word "Twist" in a title of a song could make it popular, and every act from the Sam Cooke to the Isley Brothers to the Chipmunks had their own "Twist" song.

This influence reached through 1964 or so, with the Beatles' taking the Isley Brothers' tune, "Twist and Shout," to the heights of the charts.

I was young in 1960 and 1961, but I can vaguely remember dancing "The Twist" with my grandmother--who loved to dance--in the kichen of her apartment.

Like I said, anyone could do this dance, and even people who don't normally dance did "The Twist."

But Checker was much, much more than "The Twist."

Between 1959 and 1988, he placed nearly three dozen songs on the singles charts, many of the songs trying to mimic his lasting hit--"Let's Twist Again"being a prime example--and others trying to generate more dancing buzz--such as "Pony Time."

Although his main years of hit making were generally the pre-Beatle years of 1960 to 1963, in recent years he has been embraced by the rappers, and actually had a big hit with the Fat Boys in 1988 with "The Twist (Yo Twist)."

Checker has also had some success as a rapper himself, and in another guise, he had a major rap hit just a few years ago, the name of which I cannot remember now.

He still performs, too, continuing to spread "The Twist" to newer generations.

It is a song that won't stop giving, and it is probably the most popular song in the rock and roll era, not by plays or sales, but by knowledge by people who don't even like rock music.

Perhaps that very fact has hurt Checker. I am sure some people view him as a one-hot wonder who spread the one hit out to three dozen hits.

Not me. I think the guy is the real deal, and he should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Not having him there is a real oversight, or perhaps you can call it a snub.

Whatever the case, here is to the one and only Chubby Checker. Happy belated birthday to you, and keep on twistin'.

Something tells me that he will do just that, even for newer generations of kids to listen to and to dance to.

Happy No. 74 to Chubby!

I will next speak to you on Wednesday, as I will take off from tomorrow's column for a private matter. See you on Wednesday, and keep twisting!