Ray Cleere pays tribute to the great musician on the centenary of his birth

 

For most Europeans, rock and roll began with Bill Haley and particularly with ‘Rock Around the Clock’ which gained success from being selected as the theme song for the film ‘The Blackboard Jungle’.

Born William John Clifton Haley, 100 years ago on July 6th, 1925, at Highland Park, a Detroit suburb, Bill Haley spent a decade in obscurity before finding fame in the mid-fifties as the first idol of the rock and roll era.

When Haley was four his parents, both musical, moved to Pennsylvania. As a teenager, Haley attempted to launch himself as a hillbilly artiste in local fairs and amusement parks. He played guitar for two years with his cousin Lee’s band in Booth-Winn during the early forties, made his first solo record, ‘Candy Kisses’, at 18, and spent the next four years on the road with various obscure cowboy bands.

While Haley had been on the road, a small radio station, WPWA, had been built in Chester, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Booth-Winn. In 1949, Haley returned home, worked at WPWA and formed his own band – the ‘Four Aces of Western Swing’ – who broadcast regularly from the station.

With another band – first called the Down Homers, then the Saddlemen – he recorded several country songs that quickly disappeared into obscurity.

In 1950, the band were signed to a Philadelphia record label, Essex, and in 1951 Haley recorded Jackie Brenston’s rhythm and blues number ‘Rocket 88’. That record sold only 10,000 copies, but the song convinced Haley that high energy music – something like black rhythm and blues – would prove popular.

In 1952, he changed the band’s name to ‘Bill Haley and the Comets’ and recorded another rhythm and blues number, ‘Rock The Joint’, which sold 75,000 copies. A Haley original, ‘Crazy Man, Crazy’ was recorded by Ralph Morterie and given extensive airplay, but Haley’s own more rambunctious version was more popular and in 1953 it became the first rock and roll record to enter the Billboard pop charts.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own