‘Let’s Twist Again’: How Chubby Checker became an unlikely northern soul hero
One of rock and roll’s all-time greatest one-hit wonders, Chubby Checker’s career was dominated by his 1960 recording of ‘The Twist’, and its colossal success cast a shadow that was impossible for the South Carolina performer to escape, until the northern soul scene of the 1970s rediscovered his back catalogue.
Checker’s career predates that smash-hit recording of ‘The Twist’ by around two years, but those early days during the late 1950s largely revolved around his parodies and impressions of the great rock and roll pioneer Fats Domino, so there wasn’t a great deal of potential for commercial success. When he covered Hank Ballard’s B-side, though, Checker became the definitive, chart-topping sound of a transatlantic dance craze which launched his career in a big way.
Inevitably, though, subsequent years and recording sessions were devoted to various attempts at recapturing the success of that original single. ‘Let’s Twist Again’ worked out well for the performer, but that was something of an anomaly within his discography. Other hits came and went, but almost all of them were attempting to spark a new dance craze or hark back to the success of ‘The Twist’, which audiences were rapidly becoming fed up with.
By the mid-1960s, Checker presided over a discography largely made up of obscure novelty singles, fleeting hits, and an astounding number of ‘Twist’ sequels. It is no wonder, then, that Checker once lamented the success of that dance craze, declaring, “‘The Twist’ ruined my life.”
Luckily, though, the label Checker was signed to, Cameo-Parkway, went into a rather inescapable decline around 1964, and that gave the performer a greater degree of freedom when it came to his recording career. So, in 1965, he recorded a version of the Robert E Miller track ‘You Just Don’t Know (What You Do To Me)’ which, despite not being a hit, eclipsed the vast majority of his previous recordings in terms of quality.
Embracing a soulful R&B sound that marked a stark departure from his rock-centric early works, the single hardly sounded like a Chubby Checker release at all, which is perhaps why it went nowhere as far as the pop charts were concerned. However, it was also its uncharacteristically soulful qualities that made the song appealing to a new generation of listeners years later, when the north of England became entranced by the beating rhythms of obscure American soul.
Given that northern soul largely revolved around discovering soul records that nobody else had heard, from artists that even the most seasoned of soulies would have no idea about, no self-respecting northern soul DJ would be actively seeking out records pressed by Chubby Checker of ‘The Twist’ fame.
Nevertheless, ‘You Just Don’t Know (What You Do To Me)’, along with the likes of ‘(At The) Discotheque’, immediately appealed to the mod and northern soul crowds of the time, giving Checker a second wind of cult success.
Due to the nature of northern soul, dealing in second-hand records and in impossibly small quantities, Checker didn’t see much in the way of commercial recompense for that northern soul stardom, but it formed an important part of his career nonetheless. After all, with the help of northern soul, he managed to eclipse his long-standing image as ‘the bloke that did ‘The Twist’’.
