Eleven years ago, Chubby Checker laid out a clear request to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame: He wanted to be inducted, and soon. Checker, 72 at the time, thought his resume as a rock ‘n’ roll pioneer spoke for itself. Besides scoring early #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Twist” and “Pony Time,” he won the genre’s first Grammy for “Let’s Twist Again.” Checker (born Ernest Evans) had been agitating on his own behalf for years when, at the 2014 Songwriters Hall Of Fame gala, he told the AP about his urgent desire to get into the Rock Hall: “I don’t want to get in there when I’m 85 years old. I’ll tell them to drop dead, so you better do it quick while I’m still smiling.”
