1964 Chubby Checker – Hey, Bobba Needle

1964 Chubby Checker – Hey, Bobba Needle

For a very long time, Chubby Checker set a record that seemed unassailable: he recorded the only single in early Rock History that reached number one on the hot 100 in 1960, fell off the chart, and then returned to the number one position in 1962: The Twist.

Mariah Carey matched that achievement in 2020. Her recording of All I Want For Christmas topped the Hot 100 rankings in both 2019 and 2020 thanks to the modern rankings that are include streamings rather than just sales.

Chubby managed eighteen top forty singles by 1964 before his last actual hit record reached #23 on the Hot 100. Kal Mann had written Lets Twist Again and a few hits for Elvis and co-wrote Hey, Bobba Needle with Dave Appell, the head of the studio band for Cameo-Parkway Records.

Chubby only had two more records that reached the top forty, but each of them stalled at #40 and quickly disappeared. It’s especially sad that the second one was a 1965 cover of Do The Freddie.

Chubby did get one more credit on a top forty single in 1998. He sang with the Fat Boys and appeared in their video for The Twist (Yo, Twist!).