MR. TWIST IN CARUTHERSVILLE; CHUBBY CHECKER PERFORMS TONIGHT

CARUTHERSVILLE -- In 1961, a dance called the twist was banned in Tampa, Fla., and Buffalo, N.Y. South Vietnam and East Germany also forbade the citizenry from engaging in movements its creator compared to "drying your butt with a towel while grinding out a cigarette."

But the twist became a phenomenon and Mr. Twist, Chubby Checker, a household name.

The 56-year-old Checker performed two shows for near sellout crowds Friday night and will entertain again tonight at the Casino Aztar Expo Center in Caruthersville. Shows are at 6:45 and 8:45.

Checker answered questions for the press and signed photographs for fans at a "Meet and Greet" Friday afternoon at the casino.

He sang a few bars of "The Twist" when asked to do so by a TV reporter but good-naturedly declined her invitation to do the dance. "That's the other guy," he said, referring to his performing persona.

Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans in Philadelphia. A grocer he worked for nicknamed him Chubby, and Dick Clark's wife added Checker, reasoning the name made him a good match for Fats Domino.

Checker says he and the eternal teen-ager made each other successful.

Clark put the 20-year-old Philadelphian and his single "The Twist" on his national "American Bandstand" show. And Checker made it look like fun to dance without touching your partner, spawning all the other dances "American Bandstand" thrived on for decades.

Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone, Thomas Edison gave us the electric light and Chubby Checker gave us the modern way of dancing, Checker proudly says.

A case also could be made for Checker's impact on the music that followed. Without Chubby Checker, the Beatles could not have recorded "Twist and Shout." In some sense, the politically conscious music of the later 1960s was a reaction to the good-time innocence Checker embodied.

Going to No. 1 in 1961, "The Twist" is still the sixth best-selling single of the rock era -- Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" tops the list. "The Twist" is the only single other than Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" to go to No. 1 on two separate occasions.

Checker had six Top Ten hits between 1961 and 1963, mining his dance for "Twistin' USA," "Let's Twist Again," "Twist It Up" and "Slow Twistin'."

Attempts to base hits on a parade of other dances -- the pony, the limbo, the fly, among others -- were only moderately successful.

A father of three who is married to a former Miss World from Holland, Checker most recently has been trying his hand at gospel and country music. Blues is the only kind of music he doesn't sing.

"I'm not good at the blues," Checker says. "My cousins used to say, 'Chubby, you sing (the blues) like white people. We don't want to hear that.'"