Chubby Checker: Still 'Twistin' Away at 82

By Bruce Chadwick
originally published: 10/06/2023

Singer Chubby Checker got interested in show business when he was four years old and went to a music show. By the time he was 17, he was not only a singer but had engineered his own, whole stage show. Now, at 82, he still has the enthusiasm of that four-year-old kid.

“It’s in me every single time I go on the stage. The magic of it, the music, constantly reaching back to when I was four and putting my whole heart into the music I’m doing tonight or tomorrow,” said Chubby.

You remember Chubby Checker. Everybody does. He’s one of the iconic rock ‘n roll stars, made legendary by his huge hit song ‘The Twist’ that you, me, nearly everybody has danced to at some point in our lives.

I asked him, silly me, if there was anything he could not do at 82 that he could do earlier in his career.

“I sing, I dance, I bop out into the audience I twist with a whole lot of people in the theater I am at. That answer to your question is a big ‘no,’" he said.

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So ‘no’ it is. Chubby, twisting this way and that, will be performing in The Rock and Roll Doo Wop Spectacular, a show at the State Theatre, in New Brunswick, on Saturday, October 14 at 7:00pm.

People will be out there in that audience who have seen him over the years and remember him well.

"I think I have become part of the music scenery. I didn’t just have the Twist, but we invented the Pony had a big hit with ‘Let’s Twist Again’ and even had ‘The Fly.’ You, everybody, has danced to them. You…” he stops his steady banter.

“It’s like this. A guy takes a girl out on the dance floor, and they gyrate away to one my sings, such as ‘The Twist.’ You know what they are doing? They are making love to each other with all their clothes on…”

I laugh. Well…

But why is he just as popular today as when 'The Twist' was first sung on American Bandstand way back when? What’s the secret?

“No secret,” says Chubby. “I keep singing and I keep dancing…’ But all these years, all these fans…

“That’s half of it, the fans. My fans have never left me. They keep it all going for me. And it’s…”

What?

“Soybeans…”

Huh?

“Think about it.  You put all these different ingredients together and mix ‘em up and they become soybeans. That’s me. I am the mix of a lot of ingredients, just like soybeans.”

He is a rock in show business.

“Many, many of today’s top performers, like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, use my music and my dance steps. I am a part of them, wherever they go. I gave America that dance without music style of a show. It’s like you dance away and keep raising your hands in the air and keep twirling around. That’s a Chubby Checker show. The big stars today do it; everybody does it, “said Checker.

One thing Checker definitely does NOT do is talk about retiring. NEVER.

“Hey, I started working out when I was 29, anticipating the day would come – and it is here – when I’d be in my 80s and still want to perform. I kept in shape all these years with that in mind,’” he said.

Retire Ugghh!

“Hey, you stop doing what you do – retire – and you have nothing to do. I know so many people who retired, just gave up, and have nothing to do all day. Not me. I keep at it.”

He will interrupt the retirement speech for some levity. I asked him how, at 82, he keeps going.

“How many nights a year do you perform – now?”

Long pause, then, “Enough,” he laughed.

I asked him what one thing made him so famous,

“Oh, not any one thing. The different hit records, to be sure, recognition but…” he thought for a moment. “But I’m still that little four-year-old boy back down South, still, after all these years, carrying along the magic I saw that night. That’s me…”

That’s certainly good enough, too.

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Tickets for the State Theatre show on Saturday, October 14, 2023 range from $39-$89 and are available for purchase online.  The lineup also includes The Doo Wop Project, The Duprees, and Vinnie Medugno. The State Theatre is located at  15 Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

About the author:

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Bruce Chadwick worked for 23 years as an entertainment writer/critic for the New York Daily News. Later, he served as the arts and entertainment critic for the History News Network, a national online weekly magazine. Chadwick holds a Ph. D in History and Cultural Studies from Rutgers University. He has written 31 books on U.S. history and has lectured on history and culture around the world. He is a history professor at New Jersey City University.

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