On January 28, 1956, the group entered the US album chart with an LP also entitled Rock Around The Clock, a Decca compilation featuring that and other Haley hits.īuy or stream “Rock Around The Clock” on Bill Haley and his Comets’ Universal Masters Collection. Read more about the life of Bill Haley in our interview with his son, Bill Haley Jr. That last outing came after the song was prominent in the movie smash American Graffiti, which also took it back to No.39 in America. As subsequent generations learned of its importance, it went to No.20 in 1968 and No.12 in 1974. Then “Rock” showed its staying power, charting again in Britain in September 1956, when it hit No.5. That success, on Decca, prompted a re-release on Brunswick in the UK, and this time, the song really took off, spending three weeks at No.1 in November and December. Rock Around the Clock Listen online Bill Haley & His Comets Bill Haley & Hi Follow 0 fans Bill Haley & His Comets Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. Listen to the 50s playlist for more by Bill Haley and his Comets and other key acts of the decade. After being featured in the 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle, it then made the American survey in May, and went on to spend eight weeks at No.1, widely hailed as the first chart-topper of the rock’n’roll era. In fact, “Rock” was a chart record in Britain before it was in the US, if only for those two weeks. “Rock Around The Clock” was first recorded by Sonny Dae on the Arcade label in 1954, with Haley’s version (cut three weeks later) following that May, but only as the B-side of another track from the same session, “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town.” Other articles where Rock Around the Clock is discussed: Richard Brooks: Early films: rock-and-roll revolution by using Rock Around the Clock by Bill. He used the pen name Jimmy DeKnight for the collaboration. Myers, whose career also went back to the 1940s. Freedman, who’d had several successes dating back to the end of World War II, with publisher and promoter James C. It was written by Philadelphia composer Max C. You’d also have to be something of a trivia expert to know the names of the writers of the song that came to represent the commercial explosion of rock’n’roll. The new hit went on to peak at No.17 and was on the bestsellers for precisely two weeks. It wasn’t even the first UK chart entry for Bill and his group the Comets, who were simultaneously enjoying a much bigger hit with “Shake Rattle and Roll,” which climbed to No.4 and had 14 weeks on the chart. The recording in question was made at Pythian Temple Studio, at 135 West 70th Street, New York, on April 12 the year before. Conversely, he was only 55 when he passed away on February 9, 1981.īut the arrival of “Rock Around The Clock” in the UK chart, on January 7, 1955, was a major landmark. Moreover, the man delivering this vital message of teenage rebellion, Bill Haley, was already nearly 30 years old at the time. “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” the record widely held to have brought rock’n’roll to Britain, didn’t even get near the UK Top 10 first time around.
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