| BILL
HALEY AND HIS COMETS (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
The band initially formed as Bill Haley and The
Saddlemen c.1949-1950, and performed mostly country and western
songs, though occasionally with a bluesy feel. Many Saddlemen
recordings would not be released until the 1970s and 1980s. The
original members of this group were Bill Haley, pianist and
accordion player Johnny Grande and steel guitarist Billy Williamson.
Al Thompson was the group’s first bass player, followed by Al Rex
and Marshall Lytle.
Haley began his rock and roll career with a cover of “Rocket 88”
recorded for Holiday records label in 1951 which sold well and was
followed up a cover of a 1940s rhythm and blues song called “Rock
the Joint” in 1952. Both songs were released under the increasingly
incongruous Saddlemen name. It soon became apparent that a new name
was needed to fit the music the band was now playing. A friend of
Haley’s, making note of the common alternative pronunciation of the
name Halley’s Comet to rhyme with Bailey, suggested that Haley call
his band The Comets.
The new name was adopted in the fall of 1952. At that time, the
members were Haley, Grande, Williamson, and Lytle. Grande usually
played piano on record, but switched to accordion for live shows as
it was more portable than a piano and easier to deal with during
musical numbers that involved a lot of dancing around. Soon after
renaming the band, Haley hired his first drummer, Charlie Higler,
though Higler was soon replaced by Dick Boccelli (a.k.a Dick
Richards). During this time (and indeed, as late as the fall of
1955), Haley did not have a permanent lead guitar player, choosing
to use session musicians on record and either playing lead guitar
himself or having Williamson play steel solos, instead.
In 1953, Haley scored his first national success with an original
song (co-written by an uncredited Marshall Lytle) called “Crazy man,
crazy”, a phrase Haley said he heard from his teenaged audience.
Haley later claimed it sold a million copies, but this is considered
an exaggeration. “Crazy man, crazy” was the first rock and roll song
to be televised nationally when it was used on the soundtrack for a
1953 television play starring James Dean.
In early 1954, Haley added Joey Ambrose on tenor sax, and soon after
this the band joined Decca Records label of New York City. For their
first recording session on April 12, 1954, with session musicians
Danny Cedrone on electric guitar and Billy Gussak on drums (standing
in for Boccelli), Bill Haley and his Comets recorded “Rock Around
The Clock”. Haley’s biggest hit, and one of the most important
records in rock and roll history, sales of “Rock Around The Clock”
started slow but eventually sold an estimated 25 million copies and
marked the arrival of a cultural shift.
Initially, “Rock Around The Clock” was only a modest success. Much
more impressive was the million-seller, “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, a
somewhat bowdlerdized version of the Big Joe Turner recording of
earlier in 1954. Although Haley’s recording is often referred to as
a cover version, it technically isn’t as the song is a)
substantially rearranged and bears almost no resemblance to Turner’s
version and b) it was not released in direct competition with
Turner’s original. Although Haley’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll” never
achieved the same level of historical importance as “Rock Around The
Clock”, it actually predated it as the first major international
rock and roll hit, although it did not attain the Number 1 position
in the American charts. When Elvis Presley recorded the song in
1956, he combined Haley’s arrangement with Turner’s original lyrics
but failed to score a subtantial hit.
The (belated) success of “Rock Around The Clock” is attributed to
its use in the soundtrack of the film Blackboard Jungle, which was
released in March 1955. The song, which was re-released to coincide
with the film, rose to the top of the American musical charts that
summer and stayed there for eight weeks, the first rock and roll
record to do so.
In 1955, Lytle, Richards and Ambrose quit the Comets in a salary
dispute and formed their own group, The Jodimars. Haley hired
several new musicians to take their place: Rudy Pompilli on sax, Al
Rex (a former member of the Saddlemen) on double bass, and Ralph
Jones on drums; in addition, lead guitarist Franny Beecher, who had
been a session musician for Haley since Cedrone’s death in the fall
of 1954, became a full-time Comet and Haley’s first performing lead
guitarist. This version of the band became even more popular than
the earlier manifestation, and appeared in several motion pictures
over the next few years.
Other hits recorded by the band included “See You Later, Alligator”
in which Haley’s frantic delivery contrasted with the Louisiana
langour of the original by Bobby Charles, “Don’t Knock The Rock”,
“Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie”, “Rudy’s Rock” (the first instrumental hit
of the rock and roll era) and “Skinny Minnie”.
In 1956, Bill Haley and his Comets appeared in two of the earliest
rock and roll movies: Rock Around the Clock, and Don’t Knock the
Rock.
The band’s popularity in the United States began to wane in 1956-57
as sexier, wilder acts such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard
began to dominate the record charts (although Haley’s cover version
of Little Richard’s “Rip It Up” - which was released in direct
competition - actually outsold the original). After “Skinny Minnie”
hit the charts in 1958, Haley found it difficult to score further
successes Stateside, although a spin-off group made up of Comets
musicians dubbed The Kingsmen did score a hit with the instrumental,
“Weekend” that same year.
Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be extremely
popular, touring the United Kingdom in the spring of 1957, during
which Haley and his crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at
Waterloo Station in London at an incident dubbed the Second Battle
of Waterloo by media. That same year, the Comets toured Australia
and in 1958 enjoyed a successful (if riot-dominated) tour of the
European mainland. Bill Haley & His Comets were the first major
American rock and roll act to tour the world in this way.
In 1960, the band enjoyed its last new hit in the United States with
an instrumental version of “skokiaan”, although another instrumental
that same year called “Tamiami” almost became a hit.
Haley and the Comets began recording for Warner Brothers in January,
creating a series of critically acclaimed, but commercially
unsuccessful songs over the next 13-14 months, many in the country
and western style. Between 1961 and 1969, Haley and His Comets
recorded unsuccessful singles for a number of small labels in
America such as Newtown Records, Guest Star Records, APT Records, as
well as for United Artists. APT Records even went so far as to
release a single under the name B.H. Sees Combo in order to trick
American radio stations into playing music by the so-called “has
been” group. Guest Star Records released an album of Haley
recordings under the name Scott Gregory, possibly due to the fact
Haley was having major problems with the Internal Revenue Service at
the time. In 1964 there was an abortive attempt to return to Decca
with a low-selling recording of Jim Lowe’s “The Green Door” backed
by “Yeah, She’s Evil!” a song that would later be recorded by Elvis
Presley as “The Meanest Girl in Town” for the soundtrack of his
movie, Girl Happy.
For commercial success in the 1960s, the band had to turn to venues
outside the United States. The group continued to be a top concert
draw in Europe throughout the 1960s, including a successful stint at
the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany where they played around the same
time the Beatles performed there.
In 1961-1962, Bill Haley y Sus Cometas (as the band was known in
Latin America) signed with the Orfeon Records label of Mexico and
scored an unexpected hit with “Twist Espanol”, a Spanish language
recording based on the Twist dance craze that was sweeping America
at the time. Haley followed up with what was, for a time, the
biggest selling single in Mexican history with “Florida Twist”.
Although Chubby Checker and Hank Ballard were credited with starting
the Twist craze in America, in Mexico and Latin America, Bill Haley
and his Comets were proclaimed the Kings of the Twist. Thanks to the
success to “Twist Espanol” and “Florida Twist”, among others, the
band had continued success in Mexico and Latin America over the next
few years, selling many recordings of Spanish and Spanish flavored
material and simulated live performances (overdubbed audience over
studio recordings) on the Orfeon label and its subsidiary, Dimsa.
They hosted a TV series entitled Orfeon a Go-Go and made cameo
appearances in several movies, lipsynching to some of their old
hits. Haley, who was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs
in the language, but the vast majority of the band’s output during
these years were instrumental recordings, many utilizing local
session musicians playing trumpet. There was also some
experimentation with Haley’s style during this time; one single for
Orfeon was a folk ballad, “Jimmy Martinez”, which Haley recorded
without the Comets.
In 1966, The Comets (without Bill Haley) cut an album for Orfeon as
session musicians for Big Joe Turner, who had always been an idol to
Haley; no joint performance of “Shake, Rattle and Roll” was recorded,
however. In a 1974 interview with BBC Radio, Haley said Turner’s
career was in a slump at this time, so he used his then-considerable
influence with Orfeon to get Turner a recording session. The Comets’
association with Orfeon/Dimsa ended later that year.
By 1967, as related by Haley in an interview with radio host Red
Robinson that same year, the group was “a free agent” without any
recording contracts at all, although the band continued to perform
regularly in North America and Europe. During this year, Haley —
without the Comets — recorded a pair of demos in Phoenix, Arizona: a
country-western song called “Jealous Heart” for which he was backed
by a local mariachi band (and similar in style to the earlier “Jimmy
Martinez”), and a late-60s-style rocker called “Rock On Baby” backed
by a group called Superfine Dandelion. Neither recording would be
released for 30 years. In 1968, Haley and the Comets recorded a
single for the United Artists label, a version of That’s How I Got
to Memphis but no long-term association with the label eventuated.
In order to revive his recording career, Haley needed to turn to
Europe.
By the late 1960s, Haley and the Comets were considered an oldies
act. The band’s popularly never waned in Europe, and the group
signed a lucrative deal with Sonet Records of Sweden in 1968 that
resulted in a new version of “Rock Around the Clock” hitting the
European charts that year. The band would record a mixture of live
and studio albums for the label over the next decade.
In the United States in 1969, promoter Richard Nader launched a
series of rock and roll revival concert tours featuring “oldies”
acts of the 50s and 60s. One of the first of these shows, held at
the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City, resulted
in Haley receiving an eight-and-a-half minute standing ovation
following his performance, as Nader related in his recorded
introduction to Haley’s live album Bill Haley’s Scrapbook, which was
recorded a few weeks later at New York’s Bitter End club.
The band appeared in several concert films in the early 1970s,
including The London Rock and Roll Show and Let the Good Times Roll.
After 1974, tax and management problems prevented Haley from
performing in the United States, so he performed in Europe almost
exclusively, though he also toured South America in 1975. The band
was also kept busy in the studio, recording numerous albums for
Sonet and other labels in the 1970s, several with a country music
flavor. In 1974, Haley’s original Decca recording of “Rock Around
the Clock” hit the American sales charts once again thanks to its
use in American Graffiti and Happy Days.
In February 1976, Haley’s saxophone player and best friend, Rudy
Pompilli, died of cancer after a nearly 20-year career with the
Comets. Haley continued to tour for the next year with a succession
of new sax players, but his popularity was waning again and his 1976
performance in London was critically lambasted by music media such
as Melody Maker. In early 1977 Haley announced his retirement from
performing and settled down at his home in Mexico. According to the
John Swenson biography of Haley, the musician was quoted as saying
that he and Pompilli had an agreement that if one died, the other
would retire.
The Comets continued to tour on their own during this period.
In 1979, Haley was persuaded to return to performing with the offer
of a lucrative contract to tour Europe. An almost completely new
group of musicians, mostly British, were assembled to perform as The
Comets, and Haley appeared on many TV shows as well as in the movie
Blue Suede Shoes, filmed at one of his London concerts in March
1979. A few days later, a performance in Birmingham was videotaped
and aired on UK television; it was released on DVD in 2005.
In November 1979, Haley and the Comets performed for Queen Elizabeth
II, a moment Haley considered the proudest of his career. It was
also the last time he performed in Europe and the last time most
fans saw him perform “Rock Around the Clock”.
In 1980, Bill Haley and His Comets toured South Africa but Haley’s
health was failing and it was reported that he had a brain tumor.
The tour was critically lambasted, but surviving recordings of a
performance in Johannesburg show Haley in good spirits and good
voice. Nonetheless, according to the Haley News fan club newsletter
and the Haley biography Sound and Glory, planned concerts such as a
fall 1980 tour of Germany, and proposed recording sessions in New
York and Memphis were cancelled — including a potential reunion with
past members of the Comets — and Haley returned to his home in
Harlingen, Texas where he died in his sleep of an apparent heart
attack on February 9, 1981.
In April 1981, Bill Haley & His Comets returned to the British
musical charts once again when MCA Records (inheritors of the Decca
catalog) released “Haley’s Golden Medley”, a hastily compiled edit
of the band’s best known hits in the style of the then-popular “Star
on 45” format. The single reached No. 50 in the UK but was not
released in the United States.
In 1987, Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
At that time, supporting bands were not also named to the hall. This
policy has since changed and efforts have been under way for several
years to have The Comets also named to the Hall. Bill Haley and His
Comets have also been inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and,
in July 2005, the surviving members of the 1954-55 Comets
represented Haley when Bill Haley and His Comets were inducted into
Hollywood’s Rockwalk, a ceremony also attended by Haley’s second
wife and youngest daughter. The Comets placed their handprints in
cement; a space was left blank for Haley. |
