At first listen, you may think you’re hearing unreleased music from Arthur Lee and Love. Or more accurately, an outtake from their album False Start with a less-than-on-top-of-his-game Jimi Hendrix on guitar, something akin to their collaboration on that record’s opener, “Everlasting First”. However, what’s coming through is “Stoned in the Bathroom”. It’s a track from Chequered!, the obscure, long-out-of-print “psychedelic” album waxed in 1971 by the most unlikely musician: Chubby Checker, the man behind the 1960 hit that popularized a dance craze, “The Twist”.
When Checker is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on 8th November, chances are you won’t hear much, if anything, about it, and that is even though it’s a top-rate collection. It’s a guilty pleasure for veteran musicians like Throwing Muses‘ Kristin Hersh and Lenny Kaye, as well as younger players like Peter Negroponte, the drummer for the psych-punk band Guerilla Toss.
Checker’s stylistic U-turn occurred when he teamed up with Ed Chalpin. He was the notorious producer who sued Jimi Hendrix in 1968, seeking to claim rights to his new musical riches under a three-year, one-dollar contract the guitarist had signed as a sideman during a 1965 recording session.
The 11-track album’s creation is shrouded in mystery, with few firm details about where it was recorded (some say Holland or Norway, while others claim New York, or both) or the studio musicians who played on it. In another turnabout, Checker penned all but one of the record’s songs. Originally titled Chequered!, it was first released only in Europe and sold poorly. Subsequent rereleases and bootlegs, with titles such as New Revelation and The Other Side of Chubby Checker, met a similar fate until a minor critical notice emerged with their 2012 reissue on Sunbeam Records.
Chequered! is chock-full of the musical and lyrical touchstones of late 1960s psychedelia – screaming Hammond organ, Hendrix-styled fuzz and wah-wah guitaring, thunderous drumming, and abundant appearances of the words “trippin'” and “high”.
“How Does It Feel?” is seven-plus minutes of country-gospel swing, accented with overdriven organ and lyrical proclamations like “how does it feel when you’re trippin’ with somebody else”. In “My Mind”, Chubby and the band sound like a fusion of Iron Butterfly and the Chambers Brothers. Checker does a call-and-response with thick fuzz-toned guitars, deploying grunts and squeals as he returns to the refrain “my mind comes from a high place”.
“Stoned in the Bathroom” features a carnivalesque organ and a military snare drum march as Chubby sings about being in this altered state in his bathroom on a Sunday afternoon. “No Need to Get So Heavy” is a boogie that sounds like the bastard offspring of Canned Heat and early Deep Purple, while “Slow Lovin'” is a sludgy blues akin to Grand Funk. “He Died” is a funereal lament—the story of Jesus’ crucifixion—which wouldn’t sound out of place on 666, the apocalyptic concept album by proto-prog rockers Aphrodite’s Child.
Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh has been a long-time fan since she became acquainted with the record via this 2012 reissue. “A fellow musician who knew I hated industry crap gave me a CD of it, saying, ‘Trust me on this one,'” says Hersh. “As for the mythology of the album, I heard Chubby went a bit mad, moved to Holland, discovered weed and Hendrix, and this was the result.”
The opener, “Goodbye Victoria”, is one of Hersh’s favorites, one she plans to cover with her noise rock band, 50 Foot Wave. “This song is a special moment in music,” says Hersh. “We’re so used to being sold fake passion that when you hear the real thing like this, someone lost on Earth and in sound, it hits really deep.”
Hersh has also witnessed the reaction to Chubby’s virtually unknown psych music when it’s deployed on an unsuspecting audience. “Once I guest DJ’d at a club in Edinburgh and played this record start to finish,” continues Hersh. “It had everybody on the dance floor. I had 50 drinks bought for me that night, all balanced precariously next to the turntable.”
Just how obscure was Chequered! at the time of its release? It’s one that even slipped unnoticed by one of rock’s most knowledgeable authorities, musician/author/producer Lenny Kaye. “I never knew it existed, even though I was working in a record store and writing about music at the time of its initial release,” adds Kaye. “It’s a strange album, almost as if Chubby had entered an alternative universe and turned into a credible soul singer with overtones of Curtis Mayfield and Baby Huey, escaping the caricature as a dance choreographer. It recreates the quasi-psychedelic soundscape of the late 1960s but was overlooked to the point of invisibility.”
New York drummer Dave Donen had the unique opportunity to both see Chubby perform his psychedelic album live and then play with his band a few years later. “At the time I was playing with people like Slim Harpo and Chuck Berry and knew the owner of Ungano’s, so I would get in free every weekend to see new bands like Free and Fleetwood Mac,” says Donen. “When I heard Chubby was going to be there, I went, thinking it would be a bit of a laugh.”
“What I saw was a very different Chubby,” continues Donen. “He was dressed in a psychedelic shirt and pants with colorful scarves and a headband, playing thunderously heavy music, a bit of cliched psychedelia, and, yes, he didn’t play ‘The Twist’ even though the audience kept calling for it.” Donen continues: “Ironically, four years later, I auditioned for and toured with his band for six months. The set list was all rock ‘n’ roll oldies, with no psych or headband in sight.”
Klemen Breznikar, the founder of It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, is another fan. “From the first needle drop, you can feel this album has a remarkable momentum. It’s especially fascinating to compare it to his early 1960s recordings and see how he developed into a guy who wrote songs with a sort of streetwise soul with psych overtones.”
Peter Negroponte, drummer for the New York art rockers Guerilla Toss, concurs. “This is a compelling listen, perhaps a forgotten psychedelic gem. It’s full of big riffs, ripping organ, fuzzy guitars, and his attempt at socially relevant lyrics. There are some strong songs here, for sure, like ‘My Mind’ and ‘Stoned in the Bathroom.'”
As for Checker, his opinions on the album remain mysterious. He reportedly distanced himself from it soon after its release. In fact, according to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his management, he will not be present at the induction event.
On Checker’s brief psychedelic chapter, Lenny Kaye offers a final word. “I have to applaud Chubby for trying something unexpected,” concludes Kaye. “Too bad it had to wait half a century to be unearthed.”
Editor’s Note: After the article’s publication, we finally had the chance to connect with writer Richard Morton Jack, the producer of the Sunbeam 2012 reissue of the album, who added some more facts.
“The album was recorded in NYC in early 1970, with backing from Checker’s short-lived group the Ship, who gigged with him in Canada, Florida, New York, and elsewhere for about 3 months. Their most interesting date was a support slot for the Stooges in February 1970. Ed Chalpin was unable to license it to any American labels, but Decca in the UK (with whom he had an existing relationship) took it on and put it out in June 1971, preceded by a 45 in May.”
He continued: “Checker’s relationship to his music has perhaps always been a little volatile. Larry Marshak of Rock magazine covered The Ship’s Ungano’s and wrote: ‘He has shunned his past to the extent that he almost slugged me backstage when I suggested he do “The Twist” during his set…I find him a totally obnoxious cat offstage.’ Later, he seems to have taken the same approach to people who mentioned his rock phase to him!