ENTERTAINMENT

Spinners, Chubby Checker at Mayo PAC Friday

BILL NUTT
CORRESPONDENT

Chubby Checker and the Spinners would seem to represent different musical eras. Checker’s version of “The Twist” topped the charts in the early 1960s, while the Spinners enjoyed their greatest commercial success more than a decade later.

In fact, both acts are rooted in the 1950s, and both continue to draw their energy from the era of R&B and early rock ’n’ roll.

Checker, for one, dislikes the word “oldies.”

“We bring the past, but we also bring the present and what we hope will be the future,” he says.

Henry Fambrough, the last original member of the Spinners, agrees that he still thinks in terms of the present.

“We’ve been playing these songs for years and years, but they still feel new,” he says. “I’m so appreciative of the people who come to see us.”

The two acts have shared bills numerous times over the years, and they will do so again tonight at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.

Checker, who was born Ernest Evans in South Carolina in 1941, was raised in Philadelphia. He sang in harmony groups and entertained friends with impersonations of popular singers of the day. (His stage name is a take-off on Fats Domino.)

In 1960, Checker was asked by record company executives to cover an R&B song by the Hank Ballard and the Midnighters that had some chart success in 1959. Checker initially balked at the idea.

“I told them I didn’t want to do it because Hank had already done it. But they insisted,” he recalls. The song: “The Twist,” which would spark a dance craze and have the distinction of topping the Billboard charts twice, in 1960 and again in early 1962.

“Hank wrote that song, and he was a great singer,” Checker says. “But he didn’t bring to that song what I bring to it, the persona and the energy.”

Checker went on to have success with other songs, such as “Pony Time” and “Limbo Rock,” as well as several variations on “The Twist.” But he was labeled as a singer of novelty dance hits, and he was unable to shake that stereotyping.

“I never got the respect I think I deserved,” he now says. “I’m not bitter about it. But I hear my music in a lot of what kids do. You slow down the beat of my music, and it’s boogie. I don’t think I get the credit.”

What sustains Checker is his love of performing.

“My band and I put on a great live show,” he says. “The people who saw my show in 1960 came back with their children to see me in 1985, and now their grandchildren come to see me.”

All about harmony

Henry Fambrough has also seen several generations in audiences. The Spinners started in the Detroit area in 1954 as a group of high school friends who enjoyed singing.

The Spinners came to the attention of Harvey Fuqua, founder of the Moonglows.

“Harvey helped us become professionals,” Fambrough says.

“He taught us how to harmonize live. He worked us every day and carved us into what we are today.”

The Spinners spent more than a decade on several labels (including Motown) with only moderate success. “At the time, Motown had Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Supremes. We got lost in the shuffle,” Fambrough says.

In 1972, the Spinners signed with Atlantic Records after their Motown contract expired. (Ironically, their last single for Motown, a version of the Stevie Wonder-written song “It’s a Shame” became their biggest hit on the label.)

At Atlantic, the Spinners began working with producer Thom Bell.

“For the first time we had a producer and writers who were writing specifically for our voices,” Fambrough says. “That’s what made the difference.”

The result was a string of Top Ten songs, such as “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “Rubberband Man,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair)” and “Then Came You,” recorded with Dionne Warwick.

Fambrough says the other four members in the current line-up of the Spinners do an exemplary job of carrying on the spirit of the group he founded 61 years ago.

“These are good guys, and they love the music,” he says.

CHUBBY CHECKER

AND THE SPINNERS

WHEN: 8 tonight

WHERE: Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South St., Morristown

TICKETS: $39 to $89

INFORMATION: 973-539-8008 or www.mayoarts.org