Editing Chubby Checker (section)

== South Philadelphia Youth ==

Ernest Evans was born on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully, South Carolina, his family relocating to South Philadelphia when he was young. Growing up in the city's diverse working-class neighborhoods, he developed interests in music that he pursued while working at a produce market. His employer, impressed by his talent for entertaining customers with impressions and songs, connected him with a friend in the music business, beginning a chain of events that would lead to stardom.<ref name="dawson">{{cite book |last=Dawson |first=Jim |title=The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance That Changed the World |year=1995 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=Boston}}</ref>

Evans's ability to impersonate popular singers attracted attention from local music figures, eventually reaching Dick Clark, whose "American Bandstand" broadcast from Philadelphia made him one of the most powerful figures in popular music. Clark's wife suggested the stage name "Chubby Checker," a playful reference to Fats Domino, and Clark began promoting the young performer. The Philadelphia connection—the city where Checker lived, where Bandstand broadcast, where local labels produced hit records—was essential to his early development.<ref name="jackson"/>

His early recordings for Cameo-Parkway Records showed promise, but the breakthrough came when the label assigned him to cover Hank Ballard's "The Twist," a song that had failed to chart in its original version. Checker's version, released in 1960, combined the song with a dance that would become a cultural phenomenon. The recording demonstrated Philadelphia's role in rock and roll, the city's record labels and promotional apparatus creating hits that reached national audiences.<ref name="dawson"/>