Twistin’ Time Is Here Chubby Checker — The Self-Proclaimed Thomas Edison Of Dancing — And Jerry Lee Lewis Roll Into The Arena

Chubby Checker wants you to know that his place in history belongs alongside Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.

“You mean the guy who brought us ‘The Twist’?” you may ask with some skepticism.

Yep, that’s him.

“When Chubby Checker came along, the world changed and it has been changed and transformed even at this very moment,” says Checker with a Napoleon-like sense of modesty in a recent phone interview.

Perhaps if you were a teeny bopper in the early 1960s you recognize the significance “The Twist” has had on all of mankind. But, in case you don’t, please allow Mr. Checker to explain.

“Before Thomas Edison, there was light but there was no light bulb. And before Graham Bell, people sent messages but there was no telephone. Before Chubby Checker, people did dances but no one danced apart to anybody’s music with a beat — not until Chubby Checker came along with ‘The Twist.’ “

More to the point, up until “The Twist,” “Rock and roll did not have a dance,” Checker says. “They were doing those dances of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. They were holding hands and spinning around doing the jitterbug and all that stuff.”

They were dancing together - not apart.

If perhaps you’ve been residing on Mars for the last three decades and don’t know how to do The Twist, then here’s a little description for you:

The Twist is done as though you’re putting out a cigarette with both feet as you step out of the shower, wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of the music.

“If it wasn’t for The Twist, dancing as we know it - as you did it when you first tried it - would never have existed,” Checker enthuses. “That’s probably the biggest thing that ever happened in the music business - that’s bigger than anything.”

Hmmm. If that seems like an overstatement, don’t tell Chubby. And don’t bother pointing out that “The Twist” was actually recorded first by R&B singer Hank Ballard.

What matters is that Checker (born Ernest Evans) was the man who took the song to the top of the charts not once, but twice.

And for Checker “The Twist” was more than just a hit, it was a 30-year-plus career. “Twist with Chubby Checker” was followed in 1961 by “For Twisters Only,” “Let’s Twist Again” and “Your Twist Party” and in 1962 by “Teen Twisters Only.”

He also made dance crazes and hits out of the Fly, the Pony and the Limbo. And earlier this year, he became the spokesman for a new weight-loss machine called the “Twist-A-Sizer.”

With all that twistin’ goin’ on, you might wonder if Checker ever gets tired of the song and dance he spread round the world.

Of course he doesn’t.

“How would I get tired of singing the most revolutionary song that was ever recorded?”

CONCERT Chubby Checker and Jerry Lee Lewis will perform Saturday at the Spokane Arena. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22.50 and $17.50, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.