What made Rock Around the Clock such a huge success? The lyrics, written by 60-year old Max Freedman, are pretty tame ("Put your glad rags on, join me hon, we'll have some fun when the clock strikes one") and repetitive. As they incorporated boogie and teen slang into their own sets, the Saddlemen became the Comets – the name was space-age and futuristic. Putting a band together called the Saddlemen, he played high schools and picked up slang like "crazy, man, crazy!" and "hot dog!" This was in the late 1940s. Eventually he got himself a slot as a DJ in Pennsylvania, where he played the hillbilly he loved and the boogie woogie and R&B that kids in the north seemed to go for. Raised in Michigan, Bill Haley had been playing guitar for a long time before he had a band, at auctions and medicine shows, on local radio as the Ramblin' Yodeler. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view He couldn't understand why he was so overlooked. He was well aware that people thought of him as avuncular and a little embarrassing, the man in the plaid jacket with the kiss curl and the pudgy face. Yet Haley died alone, in the shed at the end of his garden where he lived, in 1981. Whatever the claims of Rocket 88 or Good Rockin' Tonight or Arthur Crudup's That's All Right Mama to be the first rock'n'roll record, Rock Around the Clock was more important because it was the first rock'n'roll record heard by millions of people worldwide. They were the first rock'n'roll band, and Rock Around the Clock was the first international rock'n'roll No 1. But in 1955, no one was talking about the rock pantheon. Maybe Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers are to blame, having sent the song back to No 1 in 1989 as part of a medley, like a latter-day Winifred Atwell, squidging it into the Hawaii Five-O theme and Chubby Checker's Let's Twist Again. Elvis, Gene Vincent and Little Richard have their place in the rock pantheon Rock Around the Clock, though, has the whiff of Happy Days about it. Sixty years to the week after Rock Around the Clock was recorded, Bill Haley isn't often thought of as a firestarter. The world looked entirely different, and Rock Around the Clock was largely responsible. By the time Haley's last hit, Don't Knock the Rock, was leaving the Top 20 two years later, the This Is Tomorrow exhibition had taken place, introducing Richard Hamilton and Pop Art to the world, while Haley had the red-hot likes of Little Richard's Long Tall Sally, Elvis Presley's Hound Dog and Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill for chart company. Sneaking in at No 18, on the gold Brunswick label, Bill Haley & His Comets had a new entry with Rock Around the Clock, a song the band had recorded as a B-side the previous May. We’re gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight”Īnother hit by Bill Haley and His Comets was “See You Later Alligator.” Please click here to read more about it and listen to it.I n January 1955, Britain must have felt like it was finally emerging from the second world war: rationing had ended just a few months earlier, and the country had celebrated Christmas by sending Winifred Atwell's pub piano medley Let's Have Another Party to the top of the charts. When the clock strikes twelve, we’ll cool off then When the chimes ring five, six, and seven If the band slows down we’ll yell for more When the clock strikes two, three and four We’re gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock rock “One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rockįive, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock rock Here are the lyrics to “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets: Since many people at the time did not know what rock and roll was, the label on the single calls it a “Fox Trot.” The song was also used as the opening theme for the TV show Happy Days. Chart, selling millions of copies worldwide. When the movie was released, “Rock Around The Clock” took off, skyrocketing to #1 on the U.S. The producers loved the song and used it in the opening credits. Then, in 1955, when Glenn Ford was helping producers of the film Blackboard Jungle find a song to represent 1955 youth, he borrowed his son Peter’s record collection. Although their version made it to the pop charts, it was initially considered to be a commercial disappointment. Bill Haley and His Comets recorded and released it in 1954. Myers (as Jimmy DeKnight) and was first recorded by Sonny Dae and His Knights. The song “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets has us looking at the roots of rock and roll.
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