One taught a generation to “dance. apart.”
The other had the distinction of outselling the Beatles.
Both will be appearing on the Court of Honor Stage this September during the Big E – the largest state fair in the Northeast.
So, get out your calendars and plan your Big E visits because you won’t want to miss these two legends in concert.
Chubby Checker will be twistin’ again
Back for an encore in 2024 – he rocked the Court of Honor Stage in 2023 according to his press agent Shelly Field –Ernest Evans – known to the world since his 1960s breakthrough hit “The Twist” as Chubby Checker – brings his dance party to the Big E for two afternoon shows on Sept. 16 and 17. Both shows are slated for 2 p.m.
“They gave us two days this year so everyone gets to see him,” Field shared.
Prime caught up with Checker and Field in early August after a whirlwind three-show gig in Las Vegas where the 82-year-old performer danced and sang for packed audiences for 100 minutes during each show. Ever the entertainer, Checker quickly said he was primed for a return visit to the Big E.
‘I love that fair,” Checker said candidly. “I’m living my dream every time I’m on stage.”
Checker recounted how, at four years old his mother took him to the Georgetown Fair in South Carolina, where he saw his first performer, Ernest Tubbs, live on stage and “that did it.”
‘I couldn’t dream about doing anything else but that,” he said.
And “doing that” is exactly what the man who, in August of 1960 at 18 years old, taught the world how to twist in 2 minutes and 42 seconds on American Bandstand, will be doing during his two shows at the Big E.
“I always give them what they want,” Checker said about the shows he plans for his audience. “The twist – always… when I sing songs, I sing them just the way [I] sang them on the record. When I do the twist, it imitates how I did the twist.”
Among Checker’s hit songs are “Let’s Twist Again,” “Slow Twist,” “Pony Time” – and the accompanying dance move, “The Hucklebuck,” and “Limbo Rock”– again introducing a dance move.
A rock icon in his own right, Checker garnered seven number-one Billboard Chart hits in the 1960s and is the only artist to have a rock and roll song, “The Twist,” hit number one on the Billboard chart twice. He also had the number-one single for the entire decade of the 1960s, recording Billboard’s first Number One Song of All Time.
“I don’t like to go to a show and see someone I love or I’m a fan of and they don’t do that song, or they do it differently; that upsets me when they do it differently,” Checker explained.
That said, Checker invited his fans to make plans to see both shows, if they can.
“The second show won’t be the same, it will be different; something will go in that didn’t go into the first,” he said. “I have to be sure they get that sensation the [second] time around and give them something unexpected … it’s not easy… you have to be a technician to do that.”
A consummate performer who said he’s always “looking forward to every show,” Checker admits to “thinking about [the show] and wondering what it’s going to be like and how I’m going to work with the band because you never know what’s going to happen.
“It’s all about the audience, they’re the most important thing,” he continued. “When the show is over, I want them to think ‘Wow, it’s over already? … I want to leave them that they never forget that they came to see that show.”
And the man who taught a generation to do the twist, the pony and the fly plans to elicit just that kind of reaction from the Big E crowd – both young and old.
“He just keeps going and going. It’s such an inspiration – for older people and for younger people,” Field said.
Peter Noone – he outsold the Beatles in 1965
Chubby Checker isn’t the only legendary singer from the 1960s who will be bringing his music to the Big E this September.
Peter Noone – frontman “Herman” for the 1960s British Invasion band Herman’s Hermits – will be bringing his set list of classic hits to the Big E for a two-day appearance on Sept. 23 and 24. His shows will take place on the Court of Honor Stage at 2 p.m. on both days.
Like Chubby Checker, this is a return engagement for the multi-talented singer and actor, who exploded onto the music scene in 1962 at just 15 years old with the Herman’s Hermits UK hit single. “I’m Into Something Good.” In 1965, Noone and Herman’s Hermits had the distinction of outselling the Beatles and were the biggest recording act in the world in 1966.
“We sold 60 million records … you could turn the radio down but Herman’s Hermits songs were being played all over the world,” Noone said of the band’s popularity in the 1960s.
Noone’s last appearance at the fair was in 1996 when he was hosting VH1’s 1990s blockbuster music lookback show “My Generation.” During the show,VH1’s Viewer’s Choice Awards voted him “Sexiest Artist of the Year.”
“I’ve been asking why I haven’t been doing [the Big E] with my agent,” Noone remarked when Prime caught up with him in early August between PR events for an upcoming concert. “I was very excited to get it [this year]. I remember last time vividly, and I remember it was a very good gig for me.”
With 20 top hit songs that have stood the test of time – “all the songs back them meant something to someone – not just mine – all the songs, the lyrics meant something” Noone explained – and a repertoire of 300 songs from the 1960s, 70s and 80s that he “knows and my band can play,” the 76-year-old performer promised to put on a 90-minute show that would bring back memories, and help attendees make some new ones.
Asked what Big E attendees can expect, Noone said though he has a set list, his show constantly “changes.”
“It depends – I gauge the audience and if they start to get bored, I take a song out,” he explained. “The theory is – and it’s only a theory – is that I am the audience and I know what they want to hear.”
Among the songs that Noone said he knows his audience – and loyal fans known as Noonatics – always want to hear are “I’m Into Something Good,” “Wonderful World,” “Mrs. Brown,” and “Henry the Eighth.”
And of course, his shows always must include his hit, “There’s a Kind of Hush.”
“The show isn’t over until that song is played and everyone is singing,” Noone shared.
When Prime asked the ultimate longtime performer question – if he ever gets bored singing the songs from the 1960s – Noone’s answer was an emphatic “no.”
“They have to drag me off with a hook,” Noone joked. “[Music’s] not my job, it’s my hobby. People ask, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I say, ‘When I can’t do it anymore.’”
“I think the show gives me stamina,” Noone continued with a laugh. “You have to be the person in the song, and the person in my song is 17.”
