BILL
HALEY (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Bill Haley (July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was one
of the first American rock and roll musicians, and is credited by
many with first popularizing this form of music in the mid-1950s
with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and their hit song Rock
Around the Clock
Haley was born William John Clifton Haley in
Highland Park, Michigan
and raised in Booth's Corner, Pennsylvania. Haley
was blinded in his left eye as a child due to a botched operation.
According to biographer John Swenson, Haley later adopted his
distinctive spit-curl hairstyle to distract attention from his blind
eye. The spit-curl caught on as a 50's style signature, although
Haley and others had worn the hairstyle much earlier.
In
1946, Haley joined his first professional group, a Pennsylvania-based
western swing band called the Down Homers run by Kenny Roberts.
Radio recordings by the Down Homers were discovered and Haley sings
a solo number "She Taught Me to Yodel"; these recordings were
commercially released for the first time in 2006.
After gaining experience with the Down Homers, Haley set out on his
own, forming several groups such as the Range Drifters and the Four
Aces of Western Swing. With the Four Aces, he made a number of
regionally successful country music singles in the late 1940s for
Cowboy Records while working as a touring musician and, beginning in
1947 as musical director at WPWA. (Many of Haley's early recordings
from this period would not be released until after his death.)
After disbanding the Four Aces and briefly trying a solo career
using the names Jack Haley and Johnny Clifton, Haley formed a new
group called The Saddlemen in either 1949 or 1950 (sources vary as
to the exact year); this new group recorded for several labels,
including one single for Atlantic Records, Haley's first exposure to
a major national record company.
Haley was signed to Dave Miller's Philadelphia-based Holiday Records
in 1951 and began to change musical styles, recording Rocket 88 (originally
by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats), and in, 1952, "Rock the
Joint", previously recorded by several bands including Jimmy Preston
and His Prestonians. (By the time of "Rock the Joint", Haley had
graduated from Holiday Records to Miller's larger Essex
label. The relative success of these recordings convinced Haley that
his new and as-yet officially unnamed hybrid of country and rhythm
and blues could be a commercial success.
Bill Haley & His Comets
During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, The Saddlemen were renamed
Bill Haley with Haley's Comets and in 1953, Haley's recording of "Crazy
Man, Crazy" became the first rock and roll song to hit the American
charts. Soon after, the band's name was revised to Bill Haley & His
Comets.
In
1953, a song called Rock Around the Clock was written for Haley. He
was unable to record it until
April 12, 1954. Initially, it was relatively unsuccessful,
but Haley soon scored a major worldwide hit with a cover version of
Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll," which went on to sell a
million copies and became the first ever rock'n'roll song to enter
British singles charts in December 1954. Haley and his band were
important in launching the music known as "Rock and Roll" to a wider
(white) audience after years of it being considered an underground
movement. When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared behind the opening
credits of the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford, it
soared to the top of the American Billboard charts for eight weeks,
launching a musical revolution that opened the doors for the likes
of Elvis Presley.
"Rock Around the Clock" was the first record ever to sell over one
million copies in both Britain
and Germany
and, in 1957, Haley became the first major American rock singer to
tour Europe. Haley continued to score hits
throughout the 1950s such as "See You Later, Alligator" and he
starred in the first rock and roll musical movies Rock Around the
Clock and Don't Knock the Rock, both in 1956. His star was soon
surpassed in the USA
by the younger, sexier Elvis, but Haley continued to be a major star
in Latin America,
Mexico, and in Europe
throughout the 1960s.
A
self-admitted alcoholic (as indicated in a 1974 radio interview for
the BBC), Haley fought a battle with liquor well into the 1970s.
Nonetheless, he and his band continued to be a popular touring act,
enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1960s with the Rock and
Roll Revival movement and the signing of a lucrative record deal
with the European Sonet Records label. After performing for Queen
Elizabeth II at a command performance in 1979, Haley made his final
performances in South Africa
in May and June of 1980. Prior to the South African tour, he was
diagnosed with a brain tumor, and a planned tour of
Germany
in the fall of 1980 was canceled. Despite his ill health, Haley
began compiling notes for possible use as a basis for either a
biographical film based on his life, or a published autobiography (accounts
differ), and there were plans for him to record an album in Memphis,
Tennessee, when the brain tumor began affecting his behavior and he
retired to his home in Harlingen, Texas where he died early on the
morning February 9, 1981.
Media reports immediately following his death indicated Haley
displayed deranged and erratic behavior in his final weeks, although
beyond a biography of Haley by John Swenson released a year later
which describes Haley painting the windows of his home black and
making rambling late-night phone calls to friends and relatives,
there is little information extant about Haley's final days. The
exact cause of his death is controversial. Media reports, supported
by Haley's death certificate (reproduced in the book Bill Haley: The
Daddy of Rock and Roll by John Swenson), suggest he died of "natural
causes most likely heart attack". Members of Haley's family, however,
contest that he died from the brain tumor. Haley was posthumously
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Haley's original Comets from 1954 and 1955 still tour the world to
packed houses. Despite ranging in age from 72 to 84, the band shows
no sign of slowing down, releasing a concert DVD in 2004, playing
the trendy Viper Room in West Hollywood in
2005, and performing at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in
Branson, Missouri in
2006-07.
(info edited from Wikipedia) |
