Chubby Checker

 (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock 'n roll singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularising many dance styles including the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B hit "The Twist" and the Pony with hit "Pony Time". 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 1958, an honor it maintained for an August 2013 update of the list.^[1] He also popularized the "Limbo Rock" and its trademark limbo dance, as well as various dance styles such as The Fly.

Ernest Evans, later known as Chubby Checker, was born in Spring Gully, South Carolina.^[2] He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Eartle Evans,^[3] and two brothers.^[4] By age eight Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, took piano lessons at Settlement Music School. He entertained his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino.^[5] One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabiano Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian.^[4]

After school Evans would entertain customers at his various jobs, including Fresh Farm Poultry in the Italian Market on Ninth Street and at the Produce Market, with songs and jokes. It was his boss at the Produce Market, "Tony A.", who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". The owner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by the boy's performances for the customers that he, along with his colleague and friend Kal Mann, who worked as a songwriter for Cameo-Parkway Records,^[6] arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. At this recording session Evans got his stage name from Clark's wife, who asked Evans what his name was. "Well", he replied, "my friends call me 'Chubby'". As he had just completed a Fats Domino impression, she smiled and said, "As in Checker?" That little play on words ("chubby" describing a degree of fatness and "checkers" being, like "dominoes", a tabletop game) got an instant laugh, and stuck: from then on, Evans would use the name "Chubby Checker".^[7]