He's the King of The Twist.

Chubby Checker is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

His rendition of the song "The Twist" forever changed the way we dance.

The Grammy Award winner is in Las Vegas for three straight nights at the South Point.

Chubby Checker, thank you for making the time to stop by Nevada Week In Person.

(Chubby Checker) Thank you for having us.

It's always wonderful being in Vegas.

-Tell me about what Vegas has meant to your career?

-I'm born in Vegas.

-No, you were not born in Vegas.

-Well, it's like I've been here-- -South Carolina, right?

-It's almost like-- I was here in 1962 I came to Vegas.

And at one time I played the Sands Hotel, and I did a residency at the Flamingo.

And I know all the streets in Vegas.

I know-- I used to jog.

I used to jog from the Flamingo Hotel, down Las Vegas Boulevard all the way down to the route that goes to Henderson.

And I used to do that.

There was no-- there was nothing here.

-Right.

-And I just remember that.

But now when you come to Vegas, if you go to a hotel-- when I was here, we used to go around to the hotels and see what was going on.

Now you can go to one hotel.

Everything's right there.

You don't have to go anywhere.

But it's just an amazing city.

And anyone who wants to enjoy this environment, you have to come to Vegas to get it because you can't get it anywhere else.

You can get-- -In the world?

-In the world.

You can get bits and pieces, but you have to come to Vegas to get Vegas.

-How many times do you think you've done The Twist in Vegas?

-Lots of times.

But it's just, it's just so-- this is a great town.

And to be in Vegas right now in 2023 at the South Point Hotel, it's amazing to me that, that I'm just here in Vegas and we're gonna have a show.

It's a miracle for me.

-Why?

-Because I've been doing it since, since I left high school.

-I mean, you were 18 when The Twist became a hit.

-I was graduating high school, and-- -In South Philadelphia.

-Yes.

South Philadelphia High.

And then when I was graduating, The Twist was slowly being played on the radio.

We really worked hard to get that song played, and little did we know that The Twist was going to change the music industry and change the world and change the dance floor.

We had no idea.

-How did The Twist come to be?

-Well, you know, Hank Ballard recorded that song.

And he-- and he wrote it, and it wasn't a big hit.

And he had another song out that was doing quite well.

And I thought that we would record this song and it would happen right away.

But it didn't.

We worked hard on it.

We went to all the record hops, and we went everywhere.

And they were pushing the other side of the song called The Toot.

And we went to Pittsburgh, and a disk jockey named Porky Chadwick says, "I'm not gonna play The Toot.

I'm turning it over."

And he played The Twist, and the phone lit up.

And that was the beginning of it.

It started to happen after all that work we did.

And then we went on American Bandstand , and that appearance on American Bandstand changed everything.

Because that 2 minutes and 42 seconds, which is the length of The Twist, changed everything.

-Not for just music and dance, but your world as well.

You were Ernest Evans before Chubby Checker.

How did you become Chubby Checker?

-You know, really I was Chubby since I was like 10.

-Are you talking about adjective-wise?

-No, just-- I became Chubby when I was 10.

My boss at the produce market, Tony Anastasio named me Chubby.

And I says, "You don't call me that."

He says-- and he cussed, he cursed a lot.

He says, "You SOB.

I'll call you what I want.

You want to work here?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

[laughter] -But he was part of promoting you.

-But I became Chubby.

Then I went to the poultry market for Henry Colt, and he and Kal Mann took me to the studio.

And I was doing a Fats Domino song because I was doing something for Dick Clark.

So this lady says, she says, "Is that Chubby?"

She says, "Yes, Chubby like Fats, and Checker like Domino."

She was Mrs. Dick Clark.

So she put Checker on the Chubby, and I became Chubby Checker.

-I found it interesting reading about you that your employers, as a high schooler, both utilized your talents to entertain their own customers.

-They did.

Henry Colt gave me a microphone.

He said, "Sing."

[laughter] -And I sang, and the people came.

-And you also did impressions.

-Yes, I did Elvis.

I did Elvis and The Platters and-- oh, I just love rock & roll so much.

And even today, I still do Buddy Holly.

-Can I hear some?

-Yeah, I do him and Charlie Rich and Elvis Presley and, you know.

-Give us a taste.

-Yeah, I do it.

What do you say, baby?

-Whew!

-You know.

Baby, what do you say, baby?

I do Elvis, and I love him, you know.

But showbusiness, my mother took me to see Ernest Tubb when we lived in South Carolina.

And we lived in Georgetown, South Carolina, and my mom took me to the fair.

And she took me to the fair, and I saw Ernest Tubb when I was 4 years old.

And I went... And from the time I was 4 years old until I was 17, that's all I could think about is being on stage singing like Ernest Tubb.

-And how important was it that American Bandstand was based in Philadelphia?

I'm not sure that a lot of people are aware of that, that it was there before it moved to L.A. -God put it there for me.

He did!

Because after I went on American Bandstand , then a year or so later they left town.

But the thing is, is that that appearance on American Bandstand changed everything.

But it also changed the dance floor.

There was-- there are about five dances that we do on the dance floor.

The Twist is one of them.

-Which we are going to be doing.

-We still do it.

-Stay tuned for that.

-But the Pony, which Don Covay gave to me because he says, "We're not gonna make a hit out of it."

So he gave me the Pony.

Kal Mann wrote "The Fly."

If you do The Fly, you're doing The Shake.

And that nasty dance from 1949 by "Hucklebuck" Paul Williams in the big band, the Hucklebuck.

And we, The Twist, the Pony, The Fly, The Shake, and the Hucklebuck are the dances that we do today.

Chubby made them all popular.

But when you were doing those dances, you know, you messed up your makeup.

Your suits got all sweated up.

So someone in the music industry slowed down the beat.

And it got sexy.

And they called it the Boogie, but I'm still the Boogie Man.

-Ah.

Now, The Twist is where it started, though.

And how did it change the way we dance?

How were people dancing before?

-Because those of you that are watching, whenever your prom was, and you know who it was and you know the song that was playing.

And you looked at her.

You were looking at her, and she was looking at you.

Before that happened, they were doing the Swing.

But now I get a chance to look at that girl and her sexy stuff!

You know?

And she's looking at me, and I'm doing my thing in front of her, but we're not touching.

But that's what The Twist-- that's what's happening with The Twist.

And then the Pony came along with the same thing.

And The Shake came along with the same thing.

The Fly came along the same thing.

And the Hucklebuck is a nasty dance.

You can't do that.

When I go on stage, I say, I'm gonna do the Hucklebuck, but I don't want to look on the internet and see me doing the Hucklebuck.

-But it can't be anything compared to the dance moves of today.

-Well, the thing is, is that's what they did, they took, took all the dances that we did to another level.

Because the Pony gave us breakdancing.

And it's the Hucklebuck, The Twist, the Pony, The Shake all mixed up together.

But when you slow down the beat, you can do lots more.

-I'm thinking-- -And they do lots more.

-What do you think of twerking, for example?

-Well-- [laughter] -Well, it is what it is, but-- [laughter] -Well, you know, what we did was not as bold-- -There you go.

- --as what they're doing today.

And some of the clothes that, that they wear...

I was in the airport and a girl walk past, and I almost lost my breath.

-Oh.

-I just-- [breathing] -I just looked the other way because-- if you did that back in the '60s, they'd lock you up.

Yeah.

-Now, The Twist was considered controversial.

How did you confront that?

-Well, in China if you did it, they-- they sentenced you to death in China if you did The Twist.

And I will say that it was risque.

And it was like something that, I mean, really, to stand up there and do it, I mean, that was like, what are you doing?

Well, it's The Twist.

I can do it.

I can express myself.

I'm a beautiful woman.

I got a real good figure.

I got all the good stuff.

Now I can move it, and no one can say anything about it, because it's The Twist.

That's what we did.

But it went much further and went much further.

And with the Pony and The Twist and The Fly and The Shake, a combination of the Boogie, we're responsible.

And but it's, it's fun.

And people are having a good time with it.

What can you do?

-I wonder.

I had read that before The Twist became a hit, you went to your mom, and you thought-- because you had had a hit, a smaller hit, prior to that.

And you thought, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be just a one-hit wonder and done by 18.

And you talked to your mom, and did you ask her to pray for you?

-Well, she had a hookup with the Lord.

-Uh-huh.

-My mother had a hookup with God.

I mean, you know, she-- -What I'm wondering, though, is what did she think of The Twist?

Tell me about her hookup, though, with God first.

-Well, she just was interested because she knew what I wanted.

My mother used to stage my shows in church when I was 4 years old and 3 years old.

-Okay.

-She did.

So me being in show business, she was all for that.

I told her, I said, "I'm finished already."

I'm not even out of high school.

And I got one stupid song, and that's it.

And says, "I want you to talk to the Lord for me, Mom."

So she says, "I had a dream about you, Chub."

I said, "What?"

She says, "Well, you want to record a song, and it's not going to be your song.

It's going to cover the whole world, and you're going to be very famous."

So a couple months later, I got a call from Dave Appell.

He says, "Chubby," you know, "We have this song called The Twist."

I said, "It's a Hank Ballard song."

He says, "We know, but come up and sing it.

We have a recorder and everything."

So I went up, and I sang it four times because I knew the song.

-And you were still in high school.

-Yeah.

He says, "That thing, that 'Daddy's sleepin.'"

He says, "A little flat, Chubby."

I says, "Dave, I'm having trouble with my homework.

I'm going home.

David, they'll never know."

Little did I know-- -And the rest is history.

What did your mom think of The Twist?

Was she okay with the move?

-Well, I told Mom, "Mom, I'm doing another song."

She said, "Ernest, I don't know."

She's said see what happens.

But she lived to see it, and she saw that I did it.

It was very interesting.

It was very wonderful.

I can't, I can't say much.

It was very wonderful.

-All right, it's time for you to show me The Twist.

Teach me directly.

I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

-Here we go.

-You brought that-- -I brought that.

- --just to remind everybody that you're at the South Point.

-Okay.

Here we go.

-I need to-- can I hand my papers to someone?

-Here.

Take her paper.

Thank you.

-Thank you.

Here we go.

-Are you ready?

-I am.

How do you want me?

Facing you?

-That's what we do it.

-Okay.

-One foot a little in front of the other.

Just a little bit.

-Can I go this way?

-Either way.

-I'll do this way.

-And just spin a little bit.

You lean a little bit.

Yeah.

Move your feet.

Not too much.

Not too much.

-Not too much because I'm gonna fall.

-It's easy.

There you go.

There you go.

-Now, this is calm.

This is subtle.

-Keep going.

Here we go.

Come to me.

-Gettin' closer.

-Lean back.

-Come on, baby.

-Come for me.

Lean back.

Come on.

-Now, do you do this with your, with your audience?

-Sometimes, yeah.

Yeah, I do it with them.

-At the South Point.

-You're wonderful.

-Thank you.

As are you.

What an horor.

-Thank you.

-For more interviews like this, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

-Thank you.

That was wonderful.

-Oh, I'm so happy.

♪♪♪