Haley was quickly overcome by those who actually were young, not just playing for the young, those who connected with the audience on the hormone/rebellion level such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and an “old man” much more sly than Haley, Chuck Berry. There was dancing and even rioting in the aisles of movie theaters - the kids had found their outlet and it moved to a rock ‘n’ roll beat. ![]() “Blackboard Jungle” connected youthful rebellion and rock ‘n’ roll into one volatile package and all that pent up energy spewed forth with uncontrollable fury. ![]() They were burnt out on their parents’ music, their parents’ rules, they were itching bust loose. What happened? With World War II out of the way and American life more calm, secure and prosperous than it had ever been, kids had time, money and mobility on their hands and they were looking for something that spoke to them and their raging hormones. 1, and went on to sell over 20 million copies. “Rock Around the Clock” was quickly reissued as an A-side, shot to No. Peter Ford, the son of “Blackboard Jungle” star Glenn Ford, had “Rock Around the Clock” on his turntable when Brooks came by the house one day for a visit and Brooks found his “spirit.” The song was added to the opening credits and when the film opened in March 1955 the rock ‘n’ roll era erupted. Richard Brooks, the director of a shocking new movie called “Blackboard Jungle” was looking for a theme song to reflect the spirit of the film. That, combined with Haley’s vibrant, magnetic vocal, punchy support riffs by the guitars and sax throughout the song, and the classic, astonishingly fast and clean guitar solo by Danny Cedrone (who tragically died in a fall down a flight of stairs just months after the recording) created a masterpiece.Įven though everyone involved was pumped about “Rock Around the Clock,” Gabler played it safe and released the other song they recorded that day, a straightforward R&B number called “Thirteen Women,” as the A-side of the single, and it was only a minor hit, selling around 75,000 copies. “I’d say, ‘Give me some of those lightning flashes, Billy!’” and flash Billy did. “We had the guy slap the bass, and the drummer, Billy Gussak, used a heavy back beat with the rim … Then I had Billy Williamson, the steel guitar player, hit what I called lightning flashes, where he’d take the steel bar and hit it across the strings of the steel guitar and make it arc. “At the Pythian you could really blow because there was this big high ceiling, we had drapes hanging from the balconies, and a live wooden floor,” he told author Ted Fox. Gabler used techniques developed while recording with Jordan at the Pythian on Haley, including the room’s natural reverb. At that point, the legendary Gabler had been making records for 30 years with the likes of Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Brenda Lee, Peggy Lee, the Weavers and R&B star Louis Jordan. “Rock Around the Clock” was written by Max Freedman and Jimmy DeKnight (James Myers) expressly for Haley, and recorded by Haley and his Comets for Decca Records on Apat New York City’s Pythian Temple with Milt Gabler producing. ![]() Music was his job and if those crazy kids wanted to hear something wild, he was happy to play it for them. In 1953, Haley’s own composition “Crazy Man, Crazy” was the first rock ‘n’ roll song to make the pop chart - a chart dominated at the time by the sugary mainstream pop of Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, Doris Day and Patti Page - so he was tuned in to something authentic and different.īut there is also no question that Haley didn’t have a clue as to the cultural significance of all this: he wasn’t a rebellious kid, he was a professional musician who had been at it for years, who had a wife and five children to support. That pairing of country and R&B was the musical and cultural essence of rock ‘n’ roll. ![]() There is no question Haley, born in Michigan in 1925, instinctively noticed the tide turning among the kids from country to R&B as he toured the heartland in the late-'40s and early-'50s, and he put two-and-two together as early as anyone, recording country/R&B hybrid “Rock This Joint” with his band the Saddlemen in 1952. Bill Haley has sometimes been hailed as the father of rock ‘n’ roll, but more often denigrated as a fortunate hack who stumbled along at the right time onto something he couldn’t begin to understand. Haley, his clock and “The Blackboard Jungle”īefore Elvis, Chuck, Little Richard and Jerry Lee, there was Big Bill.
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