Chubby checker dances

Evans attracted the attention of Dick Clark, host of the national television show American Bandstand, in the late s. Clark wanted to send out a Christmas phonograph record to friends, one that consisted of holiday greetings from singers imitating rock and roll stars. This dance was unknown outside the African American community, where it had achieved some popularity. The associated dance craze crossed over to the mainstream and became an international phenomenon, spawning records of the same genre by many artists in the United States and abroad. During the early s Checker had thirty more chart hits. Checker has continued to tour and perform, relying on varying combinations of nostalgia and new material.

However it was not Evans who wrote that song or invented the dance. Hank Ballard was the one who wrote and sung the song originally while watching teenagers do the dance at a nightclub in the There is no record of who or how this dance came to be. However historians have traced it back to the 's with the more blatantly sexual, bump and grind dances which were popular in black music halls with the Southern African-American Vernacular dancers.

Chubby Checker 's cover version of the song gave birth to the Twist dance craze. His single became a hit, reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot on September 19, , where it stayed for one week, and setting a record as the only song to reach number 1 in two different hit parade runs when it resurfaced and topped the popular hit parade again for two weeks starting on January 13, This version reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and number 1 in Germany. In , Billboard magazine declared the song the "biggest hit" of the s.