Chubby Checker

0:05How are you? I'm fantastic. How are you doing today? I'm just good. Everything's good. Yeah, how often do you come to Calgary? I'm still pretty new to the area. So is this like your first show up here? Or have you been touring here for years? Oh, yeah. Is that how often you're touring? Or is that just how often you come up here? I'm so busy all the time doing other things. I'm busy. Doing what? I know you have a new record coming out. What are you up to lately? I'm knocked on the walls. We're very excited about it. Yeah. Something that we've a format we have never done before. And what do you mean by that? Okay.

1:00It's a very different kind of... We did a dance thing and then we did an urban. Please, we'll play. Did you choose that yourself Valentine's Day? Yeah. Yeah. I got the album. Oh, look at that. Cool. Sounds. We're very cool. Now, what kind of songs are on? Is this stuff you've written or is it cover tunes? Or did you have someone write new songs for you? I wrote most of it.

1:45Okay, cool. Yeah. We just don't get first. Yeah, very nice. I can't wait to hear it. I'm very excited. I've never listened to any one of my songs so much.

2:35I've listened to this one. I'm just so pleased with it. And I think I'll be listening to it if it wasn't me. You can hear it in your voice. You seem very proud and very happy with it. I can't wait to hear it. I don't believe that I did this. It's almost like the guy says, I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Yeah. Now, do you play any instruments on it as well? Have you learned any instruments over the years? You grew up playing stuff? Okay. But I'm in my head and I'm too creative.

3:25I'm sure. Yeah. Is that how you've always worked then? You've always had like a piano player and you kind of dictate to him, you know, why don't you try it like this, that kind of thing? Yeah. And then he says, how'd you do that? Have I heard of him? No, I have not. Okay. And he thought, I mean, this is good.

4:25And I want. Now, is it recorded this? I know like you've been working for a long time in the music industry and I love how records were recorded back in the fifties and sixties where everyone would be in the same room, you know, and it would be live off the floor. Are you still doing it that way? Are you embracing the technology and doing, you know, one thing at a time? It's a split of both. Okay. So you are along with the natural enhancements that we put into the music in the studio and you do it natural in the drums and magnifying them a thousand times.

5:15You can't do that. Yeah. And we do all the live five thing and then we enhance it. In other words, we have the guitar. We have the drums. We play the drums and then we'll take the drums away from everything else. Go in the operating. You can make a record and have no mistakes. Yeah. But then again, I mean, I was talking to, um, Mike Love from the Beach Boys a couple of months ago and he was mentioning to me how he likes having those kind of imperfections at different places in like the Rolling Stones records or the Guess Who records just because, you know,

6:02it was about the performance. You don't know. No, I want perfect. Yeah. Fair enough. Well, why should I stay in the old basement? This is what this new record represents. It is a step away. It is a total step away from what Chevy Chuk are ever was. It's just amazing. You know, how much I am the same and how much I'm totally different. Amazing. That's what happens when you grow and you learn and, you know, you experience the world. It's like in 1937. Yeah. For a million dollars or four million dollars. Yeah.

6:49Right now. There you go. That's the thing. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah. With it's just, ah, I don't believe that's me. It's having said that the new records coming out and people are coming to the shows. Obviously you still got to play the hits. I mean, Chubby Checkers is pretty much a product at this point. Would you agree with that? I asked at my new piece that I think about every why I've been in the business all these years. Yeah. I don't think it's like anything else on this planet.

7:36Explain. It's nothing like it. No. Mm hmm. And you still playing all the old hits as well? Stuff people love. Oh, please. I mean, you have to. My old hit, my wagon. Yeah.

8:31My four seven until this very moment. There's no entertainer or singer can make a claim like that. It's like saying. Because when I picked up the photos, I had Matt. I was saying the grandbell was saying, watch it. So every time someone goes on the dance floor and does the boogie, Chubby is there. Of course. Like we did the twist. We understand what that looks like. But what about the pony in modern times?

9:16The pony was number one record. Thousand. The pony do. A buy. You have to be doing the shake. Sing keyboards to the way people dance before Chubby Checker. There was no music industry.

10:12That's incredible. No one can. Yeah. And one song we deserve for our accomplishes for the music industry. Oh, I think you get some recognition.

11:09Do you feel that you don't? I can tell you this. If we're not getting, I always say this much more. Enjoy it. I was going to say, it must have been one hell of a time for you back in the early 60s. You were on top of the world pretty much. Well, you know the thing is, you're me going. No, I keep telling myself, you know, Ernest keeps telling Chubby, don't worry about the

12:04kid. You've done something unique. Just keep going out there and doing your thing. If you can stay moving, don't worry about it. Does anyone call you Ernest anymore? Yes, I'm my old friend. Yeah, cool. You keep going. Don't worry about nothing. You know, hey. And that's what I tell you. I'm a little bit older than you. And that's what I tell myself. And that keeps me going. And that little voice keeps me going. And as a result of that, you know, I'm pleased with what we put together. Mm hmm. Oh, I mean, you must be. I mean, the twist is everybody knows the song.

12:50There's no way around it. Forty years later. I mean, it's every wedding, every bar mitzvah, every party. You play the twist. The thing that Dr. George Washington carvers is, oh, he did the peanut. But I guess it's good to be known for something. Yeah. Like Walt Disney, there's Mickey Mouse. Exactly. If the pony, there's the fly thing. Mm hmm.

13:39When the song was being recorded in the studio, those old songs about dancing in you, the creative, the dance beats, did you have the dance in mind at the time? Or did that kind of come out after the song was recorded? Oh, yeah. We did the pony, the fly, the shake, and the huckle buck. We knew. Were you doing it in the studio when you were recording? Oh, we recorded the music, but we knew what the dance was. And the corner was American bandstand. So the ones we did on TV, they were out for the bike. It's just like it wouldn't have been anything. Did you ever watch that TV show American Dream that was on a couple of years ago?

14:26Yeah, I thought. Was that what it was like, in Philly at the time? I didn't want to change history, so dating something and doing some things that was... Like what? Well, some of the thing kind of be there. Fair enough. I get a list of a few names here.

15:12I'm wondering if you could just, if you ever worked with them or if you ever saw them in passing, a story, maybe they influenced you, that kind of thing. First one is Chuck Berry. Well, Jimmy Reed, in the music industry. My show is... Cool. The next one?

15:58Ray Charles. My bag, at all. Oh, okay. That was just not my bag. I mean, I loved them and everything and I liked his music. Everybody likes to be out. Just a fan. Okay. But what he was into, I wasn't into that at all. Fair enough. Frank Sinatra. Did you ever have a chance to meet him? Oh, yes. I was a 10 for New Orchestra. Singing that ever came along. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Little Richard.

16:51Yeah. Little... Little Richard's suit. And it's Little Richard's hairdo. You agree with him? I mean, I hear that a lot from him as well. I agree with him. Yeah. The next one actually is Elvis. Do you ever meet him? Okay.

17:38Bunch of black kids between 1950 and 1954 came the King of Rock. You had the look. He had all the ingredients that it take. The Beatles. Really? I mean, I... And they were in the music industry controversial in their presentation of the music.

18:30Original packing. Interesting. Smoky Robinson. Yeah? Yeah, of course. Nothing much to say about him. Okay. Okay. Sam Cooke. I think maybe a little short lived. Yeah. A little bit of a night think up.

19:26Yes. That sounds right. Sam's like Sam Cooke. Buddy Holly. Were you friends with all those guys that went off in the crash? They were market when they got killed. There was a teenage tragedy that I think there was a guy named Johnny Ace who shot himself. And then the next animist to James Dean almost. Yeah. And one word. Chubby checker. He did it all.

20:12Nice. Yeah. And I can say that to the music industry, business industry. That's all. I've never said that before. Dancing apart to the beat. If you have a song that has a beat.