Bill Haley

Bill Haley
Bill Haley and His Comets in concert at Liège, Belgium May 1974.
Background information
Birth name	William John Clifton Haley
Also known as	Jack Haley, Johnny Clifton, Scott Gregory
Born	July 6 1925(1925-07-06)
Origin	Highland Park, Michigan
Died	February 9 1981 (aged 55)
Genre(s)	Rock and roll, Country music
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, bandleader
Instrument(s)	Guitar, slap bass
Years active	1946 – 1980
Label(s)	Cowboy, Atlantic, Keystone, Center, Holiday, Essex, Decca, Warner Bros. Records, Orfeon, Dimsa, Newtown, Guest Star, Logo, APT, Gone, United Artists, Roulette, Sonet, Buddah, Antic
Associated acts	Bill Haley & His Comets, The Down Homers, The Jodimars

Bill Haley (July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was one of the first American rock and roll musicians, 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's music clearly expanded rock and roll to a wider audience after years of the style being relegated to the R & B and rockabilly markets.

When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, it rocketed to the top of the U.S. Billboard charts for eight weeks, beginning a musical revolution that helped launched the career of Elvis Presley and others. Haley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Biography

Early life and career

Haley was born William John Clifton Haley in Highland Park, Michigan and raised in Booth's Corner, Pennsylvania. Many sources state that Haley was born in 1927, apparently due to Haley taking two years off his age for publicity purposes in the 1950s. Several sources append "Junior" to his name, but his eldest son had stated that this is erroneous.

Haley was blinded in his left eye as a child due to a failed operation. According to biographer John Swenson, Haley later adopted his distinctive spit-curl hairstyle to distract attention from his blind eye. The hair style caught on as a 50s-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. Haley had reportedly already left the group when it recorded on a pair of singles released in 1946 by Vogue Records. However, in the early 2000s, a set of 1946 radio recordings by the Down Homers were discovered on which Haley is identified by name and sings a solo number "She Taught Me to Yodel." These recordings were commercially released for the first time in 2006.

As Haley became experienced on the professional music scene, he created several groups. These included the Four Aces of Western Swing and the Range Drifters. With the Four Aces, he made some country hit singles in the late 1940s for Cowboy Records. During this time he worked as a touring musician and, beginning in 1947, as musical director at radio station WPWA in Philadelphia. 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 around 1950, recording for several labels, including one single for Atlantic Records.

In 1951, Haley was signed to Dave Miller's Philadelphia-based Holiday Records and began to change musical styles, recording Rocket 88, and in, 1952, "Rock the Joint" for Miller's larger Essex label. The relative success of these recordings (both sold in the 75,000-100,000 range in the Pennsylvania-New England region) made Haley believe that the combination of R & B along with country could be successful.

In 1951 Haley crossed paths with The Treniers while playing in Wildwood, New Jersey. Haley arranged for their song, "Rock a Beatin' Boogie," to be recorded by two bands: the Esquire Boys in 1952 and The Treniers themselves in 1953.

Bill Haley & His Comets

During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, the Saddlemen were renamed "Bill Haley with Haley's Comets," inspired by a popular mispronunciation of Halley's Comet. 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.

"Rock Around the Clock" was written for Haley in 1953, but he was unable to record it until April 12, 1954. Initially, it was relatively unsuccessful, remaining on the charts for only one week. However, 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 song to enter British singles charts in December 1954 and became a Gold Record.

Haley and his band were important in launching the music known as rock and roll to a wider audience after years of it being being relegated to the R & B and rockabilly markets. When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared behind the opening credits of the 1955 hit film Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford, the song 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 and others.

"Rock Around the Clock" was the first record ever to sell over one million copies in both Britain and Germany. Thus, 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 United States by the younger, sexier Elvis Presley, but Haley continued to be a major star in Latin America, Mexico, and in Europe throughout the 1960s.

Later career and death

A self-admitted alcoholic, 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 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. He soon 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 there is little information about Haley's final days. The exact cause of his death is controversial. Media reports, supported by Haley's death certificate, suggest he died of "natural causes most likely heart attack." Members of Haley's family, however, contest that he died from the brain tumor.

Children

Married three times, Bill Haley had at least eight children. John W. Haley, his eldest son, wrote a biography of Haley, Sound and Glory, while his youngest daughter, Gina Haley, is a musician based out of Los Angeles. Scott Haley went on to be a noted athlete. His second son, Bill Haley Jr. is currently writing a biography about his father, concentrating on the years 1949-1961.

Legacy

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 on Hydra Records, 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. The Bill-Haley-Museum opened in Munich, Germany in 2007.

In February 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced the naming of asteroid 79896 Billhaley to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bill Haley's death. Numerous biographies and histories have been written about Haley and his role in the development of rock and roll.

Unlike his contemporaries, Bill Haley has rarely been portrayed on screen. Following the success of The Buddy Holly Story in 1978, Haley expressed interest in having his life story committed to film, but this never came to fruition. In the 1980s and early 1990s, numerous media reports emerged that plans were underway to do a biopic based upon Haley's life, with Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges and John Ritter all at one point being mentioned as actors in line to play Haley (according to Goldmine Magazine, Ritter attempted to buy the film rights to Sound and Glory). In March 2005, the British network Sky TV reported that Tom Hanks was planning to produce a biopic on the life of Bill Haley, with production tentatively scheduled to begin in 2006. However this rumor was quickly debunked by Hanks.

Discography

Prior to the formation of Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, which later became The Comets, Haley released several singles with other groups. Dates are approximate due to lack of documentation. (Source: the Bill Haley Database)

As Bill Haley and the Four Aces of Western Swing

1948

• Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals (vocal by Tex King)/Four Leaf Clover Blues (Cowboy CR1201)

1949

• Tennessee Border/Candy Kisses (Cowboy CR1202)

As Johnny Clifton and His String Band

1949 or 1950

• Stand Up and Be Counted/Loveless Blues (Center C102)

Many Haley discographies list two 1946 recordings by the Down Homers released on the Vogue Records label as featuring Haley. Haley historian Chris Gardner, as well as surviving members of the group, have confirmed that the two singles: "Out Where the West Winds Blow"/"Who's Gonna Kiss You When I'm Gone" (Vogue R736) and "Boogie Woogie Yodel"/"Baby I Found Out All About You" (Vogue R786) do not feature Haley.[1] However, the tracks were nonetheless included in the compilation box set Rock 'n' Roll Arrives released by Bear Family Records in 2006.

Unreleased recordings

Bill Haley recorded prolifically during the 1940s, often at the radio stations where he worked, or in formal studio settings. Virtually none of these recordings were ever released. Liner notes for a 2003 CD release by Hydra Records entitled Bill Haley and Friends Vol. 2: The Legendary Cowboy Recordings reveal that several additional Cowboy label single releases were planned for the Four Aces, but this never occurred.

A number of previously unreleased Haley country-western recordings from the 1946-1950 period began to emerge near the end of Haley's life, some of which were released by the Arzee label, with titles such as "Yodel Your Blues Away" and "Rose of My Heart." Still more demos, alternate takes, and wholly unheard-before recordings have been released since Haley's death. Notable examples of such releases include the albums Golden Country Origins by Grassroots Records of Australia and Hillbilly Haley by the British label, Rollercoaster, as well as the aforementioned German release by Hydra Records. In 2006, Bear Family Records of Germany released what is considered to be the most comprehensive (yet still incomplete) collection of Haley's 1946-1950 recordings as part of its Haley box set Rock n' Roll Arrives.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Dawson, Jim. Rock Around the Clock: The Record That Started the Rock Revolution! San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005. ISBN 978-0879308292
• Haley, John W., and von Hoëlle, John. Sound and Glory. Wilmington, DE: Dyne-American, 1990. ISBN 978-1878970008
• Swenson, John. Bill Haley. London: W.H. Allen, 1982. ABIN B000VTOR6M

External links

• Portal site providing links to all the major Bill Haley-related websites on the Net
• Bill Haley at the Internet Movie Database
• Answers

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Bill Haley  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Bill Haley"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.