Bill Haley

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1= Rock Around The Clock
2= See You Later Alligator


William John Clifton "Bill" Haley (/ˈheɪliː/; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-selling hits such as "Rock Around the Clock", "See You Later, Alligator", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Rocket 88", "Skinny Minnie", and "Razzle Dazzle". He has sold over 25 million records worldwide.

Sunday, August 7, 1955 rehearsal publicity photograph on the Ed Sullivan Show or Toast of the Town, CBS, Hartford, Connecticut
Bill Haley was born July 6, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan, as William John Clifton Haley. In 1929, the four-year-old Haley underwent an inner-ear mastoid operation which accidentally severed an optic nerve, leaving him blind in his left eye for the rest of his life.  As a result of the effects of the Great Depression on the Detroit area, his father moved the family to Boothwyn, near Chester, Pennsylvania, when Bill was seven years old. Haley's father William Albert Haley was from Kentucky and played the banjo and mandolin, and his mother, Maude Green, who was originally from Ulverston in Lancashire, England, was a technically accomplished keyboardist with classical training. Haley told the story that when he made a simulated guitar out of cardboard, his parents bought him a real one.

The anonymous sleeve notes accompanying the 1956 Decca album Rock Around The Clock describe Haley's early life and career thus: "Bill got his first professional job at the age of 13, playing and entertaining at an auction for the fee of $1 a night. Very soon after this he formed a group of equally enthusiastic youngsters and managed to get quite a few local bookings for his band."

The sleeve notes continue: "When Bill Haley was fifteen [c. 1940] he left home with his guitar and very little else and set out on the hard road to fame and fortune. The next few years, continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner, were hard and poverty-stricken, but crammed full of useful experience. Apart from learning how to exist on one meal a day and other artistic exercises, he worked at an open-air park show, sang and yodelled with any band that would have him, and worked with a traveling medicine show. Eventually he got a job with a popular group known as the "Down Homers" while they were in Hartford, Connecticut. Soon after this he decided, as all successful people must decide at some time or another, to be his own boss again – and he has been that ever since.' These notes fail to account for his early band, known as the Four Aces of Western Swing. During the 1940s Haley was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers in America as "Silver Yodeling Bill Haley".

The sleeve notes conclude: "For six years Bill Haley was a musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, and led his own band all through this period. It was then known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen, indicating their definite leaning toward the tough Western style. They continued playing in clubs as well as over the radio around Philadelphia, and in 1951 made their first recordings on Ed Wilson's Keystone Records in Philadelphia." On June 14, 1951 the Saddlemen recorded a cover of "Rocket 88".

During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, the Saddlemen were renamed Bill Haley with Haley's Comets (inspired by the supposedly official pronunciation of Halley's Comet, a name suggested by WPWA radio station program director, Bob Johnson, where Bill Haley had a live radio program from noon to 1 p.m.), and in 1953, Haley's recording of "Crazy Man, Crazy" (co-written by him and his bass player, Marshall Lytle, although Lytle would not receive credit until 2001) became the first rock and roll song to hit the American charts, peaking at no.15 on Billboard and no.11 on Cash Box. Soon after, the band's name was revised to Bill Haley & His Comets.

In 1953, a song called "Rock Around the Clock" was recorded by Haley. Initially, it was relatively successful, peaking at no. 23 on the Billboard pop singles chart and staying on the charts for a few weeks. A month later it re-entered at number 1.

Haley soon had another worldwide hit with "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which went on to sell a million copies and was the first ever rock 'n' roll song to enter the British singles charts in December 1954, becoming a Gold Record. He retained elements of the original (which was slow blues), but sped it up with some country music aspects into the song (specifically, Western swing) and changed up the lyrics. Haley and his band were important in launching the music known as "Rock and Roll" to a wider audience after a period of it being considered an underground genre.

When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared as the theme song of the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford, it soared to the top of the American Billboard chart for eight weeks. The single is commonly used as a convenient line of demarcation between the "rock era" and the music industry that preceded it. Billboard separated its statistical tabulations into 1890–1954 and 1955–present. After the record rose to number one, Haley was quickly given the title "Father of Rock and Roll" by the media, and by teenagers who had come to embrace the new style of music. With the song's success, the age of rock music began overnight and ended the dominance of the jazz and pop standards performed by Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and others. Nevertheless, in the United Kingdom Haley was supported by former Dankworth Seven lead vocalist Frank Holder among others.

"Rock Around the Clock" was the first record ever to sell over one million copies in both Britain and Germany. Later on in 1957, Haley became the first major American rock singer to tour Europe. Haley continued to score hits throughout the 1950s such as "See You Later, Alligator" and he starred in the first rock and roll musical films Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock, both in 1956. Haley was already 30 years old and so he was soon eclipsed in the United States by the younger, sexier Elvis Presley, but continued to enjoy great popularity in Latin America, Europe and Australia during the 1960s.

Bill Haley and the Comets performed "Rock Around the Clock" on the Texaco Star Theater hosted by Milton Berle on Tuesday, May 31, 1955 on NBC in an a cappella and lip-synched version. Berle predicted that the song would go no. 1: "A group of entertainers who are going right to the top." Berle also sang and danced to the song which was performed by the entire cast of the show. This was one of the earliest nationally televised performances by a rock and roll band and provided the new musical genre called "rock and roll" a much wider audience.

Bill Haley and the Comets were the first rock and roll act to appear on the iconic American musical variety series the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, August 7, 1955 on CBS in a broadcast that originated from the Shakespeare Festival Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. They performed a live version of "Rock Around the Clock" with Franny Beecher on lead guitar and Dick Richards on drums. The band made their second appearance on the show on Sunday, April 28, 1957 performing the songs "Rudy's Rock" and "Forty Cups of Coffee".

Bill Haley and the Comets appeared on American Bandstand hosted by Dick Clark on ABC twice in 1957, on the prime time show October 28, 1957 and on the regular daytime show on November 27, 1957. The band also appeared on Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show, also known as The Dick Clark Show, a primetime TV series from New York on March 22, 1958 during the first season and on February 20, 1960, performing "Rock Around the Clock", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", and "Tamiami".

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw


"Rock Around the Clock" is a rock and roll song in the 12-bar blues format written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers (the latter under the pseudonym "Jimmy De Knight") in 1952. The best-known and most successful rendition was recorded by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1954 for American Decca. It was a number one single on both the US and UK charts and also re-entered the UK Singles Chart in the 1960s and 1970s.

It was not the first rock and roll record, nor was it the first successful record of the genre (Bill Haley had American chart success with "Crazy Man, Crazy" in 1953, and in 1954, "Shake, Rattle and Roll" sung by Big Joe Turner reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart). Haley's recording nevertheless became an anthem for rebellious 1950s youth  and is widely considered to be the song that, more than any other, brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world. The song is ranked No. 158 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Although first recorded by Italian-American band Sonny Dae and His Knights on March 20, 1954,  the more famous version by Bill Haley & His Comets is not, strictly speaking, a cover version. Myers claimed the song had been written specifically for Haley but, for various reasons, Haley was unable to record it himself until April 12, 1954.

The original full title of the song was "We're Gonna Rock Around the Clock Tonight!". This was later shortened to "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock", though this form is generally only used on releases of the 1954 Bill Haley Decca Records recording; most other recordings of this song by Haley and others (including Sonny Dae) shorten this title further to "Rock Around the Clock".

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1UQ47rWKU


"See You Later, Alligator" is the title of an iconic rock and roll song of the 1950s written and first recorded by American singer-songwriter Bobby Charles. The song was a Top Ten hit for Bill Haley and His Comets in 1956 in the U.S.

Originally entitled "Later, Alligator", the song, based on a 12-bar blues chord structure (141541), was written by Louisiana songwriter Robert Charles Guidry and first recorded by him under his professional name "Bobby Charles" in 1955. His recording was released on Chess Records under the title "Later, Alligator" as 1609 in November 1955 backed with "On Bended Knee". Guidry, a Cajun musician, adopted a New Orleans-influenced blues style for the recording. The melody of the song was borrowed from bluesman Guitar Slim's "Later for You, Baby" which was recorded in 1954.[2] Guidry also wrote "Walking to New Orleans", which was recorded by Fats Domino.

The song was also recorded by Roy Hall, who had written and recorded "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" ten weeks before, on December 1, 1955 at a Nashville session.

The most famous recording of the song,  however, was that created on December 12, 1955 by Bill Haley & His Comets at a recording session for Decca Records.  Unlike most of Haley's recordings for Decca, which were created at the Pythian Temple studio in New York City,  "Alligator" and its flip-side, "The Paper Boy (On Main Street U.S.A.)", were recorded at the Decca Building in New York. The song was featured in Rock Around the Clock, a musical film Haley and the Comets began shooting in January 1956. Regarding the claim that Decca records released this disk on February 1, 1956 in both 45 and 78 formats,[6] Billboard had already listed the song as debuting on 14 January 1956 on the Best Sellers in Stores chart at #25 and on the Top 100 at #56.[7] The Decca single peaked at no. 6 on the Billboard and CashBox pop singles chart in 1956.

Haley's arrangement of the song is faster-paced than Guidry's original, and in particular the addition of a two-four beat changed the song from a rhythm and blues "shuffle" to rock and roll. The song also has a more light-hearted beat than the original, starting out with a high-pitched, childlike voice (belonging to Haley's lead guitarist, Franny Beecher) reciting the title of the song. The ending of the song was virtually identical to the conclusion of Haley's earlier hit, "Shake, Rattle and Roll".

Bill Haley's recording of "See You Later, Alligator" popularized a catchphrase already in use at the time,[9] and Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom was quoted as saying it (this is related in a biography of the Princess published in the early 1960s). It would become Haley's third and final million-selling single, although it did not hit the top of the American charts.

Haley and the Comets re-recorded the song several more times: in 1964 for Guest Star Records, a drastically rearranged version for Mexico's Orfeon Records in 1966, and once more in 1968 for Sweden's Sonet Records. It was also a staple of the band's live act. Several post-Haley incarnations of The Comets have also recorded versions of the song. Guidry, under his Bobby Charles pseudonym, re-recorded the song in the 1990s.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B7xr_EjbzE

"Shake, Rattle and Roll" is a twelve bar blues-form song, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone under his assumed songwriting name, Charles E. Calhoun. It was originally recorded by Big Joe Turner and most successfully by Bill Haley & His Comets. The song as sung by Big Joe Turner is ranked #127 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Bill Haley & His Comets' cover version of the song, recorded on June 7, 1954 (the same week Turner's version first topped the R&B charts), featured the following members of the Comets: Johnny Grande (piano), Billy Williamson (rhythm guitar), Marshall Lytle (bass), and Joey Ambrose (saxophone).

It is known that Danny Cedrone, a session musician who frequently worked for Haley, played lead guitar, but there is controversy over who played drums. Music reference books indicate that it was Panama Francis, a noted jazz drummer who worked with Haley's producer, Milt Gabler, however in a letter written in the early 1980s, Gabler denied this and said the drummer was Billy Gussak. Bill Haley's own stage drummer, Dick Richards, did not play on this record but may have provided backing vocals since he participated in the recording of the song's B-side, "A.B.C. Boogie". This was Cedrone's final recording session as he died only ten days later.

Haley's version was released in August and reached #7 on the Billboard pop chart, spending a total of twenty-seven weeks in the Top 40.

Gabler has explained that he would "clean up" lyrics because, "I didn't want any censor with the radio station to bar the record from being played on the air. With NBC a lot of race records wouldn't get played because of the lyrics. So I had to watch that closely"

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOOL7PpL3fQ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fmyJLclU1M

Joey's Song" is a 1959 instrumental single released by Bill Haley & His Comets. It was one of the band's last successful commercial releases.

The record reached #46 on the Billboard Charts and #35 on Cashbox; however, the song did make #1 in Australia for 8 weeks from December 12, 1959 to January 30, 1960 based on the Kent Music Report and reached #26 on the Canadian charts in October 1959.[1] The record was no.2 on the year-end Top 25 Singles of 1959 list in Australia based on the Kent Music Report. The band's long run of original successful commercial releases ran out in 1960, although the famous Rock Around the Clock was successfully re-released in 1964 and 1974 (Billboard #39, US). The group continued to have chart success in Mexico during the early 1960s where the single "Florida Twist" reached no. 1.

The song, written by Joe Reisman, was included as the lead track on the band's final album release for Decca Records, Strictly Instrumental, released in December 1959. The track, featuring Franny Beecher on lead guitar and Rudy Pompilli on saxophone, also appeared on the June 1968 U.S. greatest hits compilation album Bill Haley's Greatest Hits!, 12" LP, Decca, DL 5027 (mono)/DL 75027 (stereo).

The B-side to the single "Ooh! Look-a-There, Ain't She Pretty?", was used in the film Pink Flamingos and appears on the soundtrack to the film, along with a number of other hits of the period.

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See You Later Alligator X9

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Rock Around The Clock X9