Bill Haley's "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" became the No. 1 song on this day in 1955 and stayed there for eight revolutionary weeks. Good golly Miss Molly!
Originally recorded by Sonny Dae (we once knew a weather forecaster by that name) and his Nights, Haley took the song and pretty much ripped the balls off it. But it wasn't until producers of Blackboard Jungle decided to include it in the movie that the song became an anthem for American youth.
Not even the record company knew what to call the song it pressed on the other side of Haley's single "Thirteen Women." Decca called it a Foxtrot with "Vocal Chorus by Bill Haley."
Rock 'n' roll and dacron polyester were born in the same year. What do you make of it?
(Can’t you just HEAR Rod Serling ...?)
ReplyDeleteTravelling in this 21st Century Time Machine,
you come to a door; unocking the door, a
portal to the past, with the key that brings
you to the future and that key in known as
... rock ‘n’ roll.
Picture, if you will, a portly, unassuming
Michigan lad named William John Clifton Haley,
Jnr. - a man fated to change the face of the
world. Haley, an average guitar player, had
no way to know that when he answered a
Billboard magazine ad in the mid-1940s, his
stint as a yodeller would evolve into his
singing a song that would divide the past
from the future - a song that defined all that
came before, and all that would follow.
A song that defined ... rock ‘n’ roll.
As our host Jim noted, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock" ushered in an era thereafter defined as rock 'n' roll, a term coined by a disc
jockey named Alan Freed. It was a curious -
almost mystical - turn of musical syncronicity
that led Bill Haley And His Comets to record
"Rock Around the Clock," just as Freed's
description of the new sound flowed across
the land like cheap champagne on New Year's Eve.
Bill Haley was a country singer who dubbed
himself "The Ramblin' Yodeller" ... until a
Philadelphia disc jockey convinced him to record
a version of a new - and new-sounding - record.
The song was "Rocket 88," which you may recall
was the very first rock 'n' roll record in
history. But with its ascendancy to the Number 1
spot on the Billboard Pop charts in July 1955,
Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" ushered in the
era that changed everything that would follow:
"Rock Around the Clock" was the *first* rock 'n'
roll record to top the charts. And the rest, as
it's said, is history. Although "Rock Around The
Clock" brought rock 'n' roll to the forefront
of America's consciousness and defined the new
music - and its inclusion in the ilm "Blackboard
Jungle" led many parents to associate it with
juvenile delinquency - Bill Haley never knew
the success of his peers. Indeed, at age 56,
his body ravaged by the ailments associated
with alcoholism, Bill Haley died a poor and
lonely man in 1981.
But he *was* The Father ... of Rock 'n' Roll.
(Serling returns …) Look for this one under
“O,” for the very *first* ... Number ONE hit
on the Billboard pop charts.
Rock around the clock, was a great song, I will always remember it being the theme song for "Happy Days"...... Richie Cunningham, Ralph Maulf, and Pottsy, and lets not for get The Fonz,
ReplyDeleteOne, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight