(Credits: Far Out / ABCKO Music)
Fri 8 August 2025 9:00, UK
There’s no disputing that Chubby Checker was a king of the 1960s rock and roll scene, as well as a dance pioneer to boot, but he wasn’t exactly humble about it.
Yes, he may have innovated classic dance styles from the Twist to the Fly, thus cementing his status as one of the most pivotal cultural figures of the era, but it was almost as if he spent the rest of his career dining out on these successes and never letting anyone forget about them. Could you really blame him, though?
Although he may have been at the helm of some of the decade, and indeed the century, he just doesn’t seem to have that same calibre of cultural name tag as the likes of The Beatles, The Beach Boys or The Kinks. Those pillars of rock and roll are steadfast, whereas Checker’s can often be passed off as more transient, even though his influence was every bit as significant as the rest.
In this sense, despite an ego being perhaps one of the most unattractive assets a star can possess, there is an argument where Checker’s blowing of his own trumpet can be seen in a more forgiving light, especially since he was simply just trying to fly his own flag. So, when he was asked his opinion on the greatest hit of the ‘60s, what do you think he would go for – Simon and Garfunkel, The Rolling Stones, even a bit of The Shirelles? No, naturally, it was his own.
“Of all the ’60s,” Checker once proclaimed, “there was Elvis, there was The Beatles, there was the British invasion, Jimi Hendrix, and Woodstock – the number one record was ‘The Twist’.” And although it may have been slightly arrogant to admit it himself, he wasn’t exactly wrong, either. The singer managed to achieve an almost unfathomable feat with ‘The Twist’, making it the short-lived number one hit that just kept coming back for more.
After Checker put out his version of the song in 1960, two years on from its initial release by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, he conquered history by seeing the song to the top spot… where it only actually stayed for one week. However, unperturbed, Checker was not set to give up on the old dog yet, and subsequently defeated the odds at the time by making it the only tune to return to its rightful peak position well after its first heyday, as ‘The Twist’ once again reached number one in 1962 for two weeks.
As such, Checker took on his deserved status as the comeback king, which also got him lauded as having the top song of the 1960s, according to many critics and chart data. So, as much as he may have milked ‘The Twist’ for all it was worth and dined out on its legacy perhaps a little too indulgently at times, his reasons for proclaiming his own tune as the top hit of the era were understandable, if not slightly hilarious in the way he worded them.
Of course, one of the first things you learn in rock and roll is that no one is going to be your biggest cheerleader if you don’t love yourself first – being shy and humble frankly gets you nowhere in this business. Being among the pioneers of the scene, Checker would have known this all too well, and it’s clearly a legacy he carried forward for the rest of time.
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