De hecho, aún no se le ha considerado a alguien en particular como "El Padre del Rock and Roll", pero sin lugar a dudas un fuerte candidato a éste título sería William John Clifton Haley, mejor conocido como "Bill Haley". El gran mérito de Bill Haley y sus Cometas, es que comenzaron a tocar Rock and Roll unos tres años antes que Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Paul Anka, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, entro otros; lo que lo convirtió en uno de los considerados "Pioneros" de éste género.

Inicio de un clásico

La banda se inició con el nombre de Bill Haley and the Saddlemen y realizaba música Country, ocasionalmente con algún aire de Blues. Muchas de las grabaciones originales de la banda no fueron lanzadas hasta 1970 y 1980, destacándose entre ellas "Rose of My Heart" y "Yodel Your Blues Away".

Los miembros originales fueron:

• Bill Haley,
• Johnny Grande: piano y acordeón
• Billy Williamson: guitarra acústica.

Haley adoptó el naciente estilo del rock and roll al grabar en 1951 una versión del tema "Rocket 88" de Ike Turner. Al año siguiente grabaron un tema tipo R&B de los 40's titulado "Rock the Joint", la cuál es una de las nominadas a "La primera grabación del Rock and Roll". El nuevo estilo llevó a cambiar el nombre de la banda en 1952, adoptando Bill Haley y sus Cometas debido a la similitud entre el apellido del líder del grupo y el famoso cometa 'Haley'.

Con el nuevo nombre la composición del grupo era: Haley, Grande, Williamson y un dude llamado Lytle. Grande usualmente tocaba el piano en los discos pero en los conciertos optaba por el acordeón, debido a la mayor facilidad para transportarlo. Poco después de renombrar la banda, Haley contrató su primer baterista, Charlie Higler, pronto reemplazado por Dick Boccelli (a.k.a. Dick Richards). Durante este tiempo, la banda no tuvo una primera guitarra permanente, contratando a veces músicos para las grabaciones, o tocando a veces él mismo o Williamson.

En 1953, Haley tuvo su primer éxito nacional con una canción de su coautoría (con Marshall Lytle) titulada "Crazy Man, Crazy", una frase que Haley dijo oía decir a su público adolescente. "Crazy Man, Crazy" fue la primera canción de Rock and Roll en ser televisada por una cadena nacional. Al año siguiente, Bill Haley y sus Comets grabaron "Rock around the clock": el más grande éxito de Haley y una de las canciones más importantes de la historia del rock and roll. Los movimientos acrobáticos de Ambrose al tocar el saxo y Lytle montando el contrabajo como si fuera un potro, fueron marcas personales de la banda en sus presentaciones en vivo. A fines de 1954, Haley y sus Cometas aparecieron en un film corto titulado "Round up or Rythm", tocando tres temas. Se trata de la primera película de rock and roll.

Otros éxitos de Los Cometas fueron "See your later, Alligator", "Don't Knock the Rock", "Rock-a-Beatin' Boogie", "Rudy's Rock" (el primer éxito totalmente instrumental del rock and roll) y "Skinny Minnie".

Bill Haley y sus Cometas comenzaron a ver cierta pérdida de popularidad entre 1956 y 1957, desplazados por la imagen más sexual y salvaje de músicos como Elvis Presley y Little Richard, que comenzaron a dominar las listas de difusión. En 1960 la banda tuvo su último hit en Estados Unidos, con la versión instrumental de "Skokiaan". A partir de entonces fracasan varios intentos del grupo para reactualizar su presencia.

El éxito en México y su decadencia

En 1961-1962, Bill Haley y sus Cometas (el nombre que utilizaban en América Latina) firmaron con el sello mexicano Orfeon Records y obtuvieron un inesperado hit con "Twist Español", un tema cantado por la banda en español en ritmo de twist, que se encontraba de moda en ese momento. El single se convirtió en el más vendido de la historia mexicana con "Florida Twist".

Aunque Chubby Checker y Hank Ballard fueron los creadores de twist, en Mexico y América Latina, Bill Haley y sus Cometas fueron proclamados los Reyes del Twist. Gracias al éxito de "Twist Español" y "Florida Twist", entre otros, la banda se mantuvo al tope de las listas en México y América Latina durante los años siguientes, difundiendo rock and roll en español y con sonoridad latina.

Para fines de la década, Haley y los Cometas eran considerados viejos. En febrero de 1976, el saxofonista de Haley y su mejor amigo, Rudy Pompilli, murió de cáncer después de dos décadas de carrera con los Cometas. Haley continó realizando giras durante el año siguiente pero su popularidad comenzó a decaer nuevamente y su presentación en Londres de 1976 performance recibió malas críticas de los medios. Ese año el grupo grabó un nuevo álbum, R-O-C-K. En 1977 Haley anunció su retiro y se radicó en México, mientras que Los Cometas por su parte continuaron con sus presentaciones. En 1979, Haley fue persuadido para volver a tocar en una gira europea, y para ello renovó casi completamente a los Cometas, la mayoría británicos. Haley apareció en muchos shows de TV y en la película "Blue Suede Shoes", filmada durante uno de sus conciertos en Londres en marzo de 1979. Durante la gira Haley grabó varios tracks que se incluirían a fin de año en el álbum Everyone Can Rock & Roll, el último suyo con grabaciones originales antes de morir.

En noviembre de 1979, Haley y los Cometas tocaron para la reina Isabel II, momento que él consideró de de mayor orgullo de su vida. Fue su última presentación en Europa. En 1980, Haley canceló varias presentaciones y volvió a su casa en Texas, donde murió mientras dormía como consecuencia de un infarto el 9 de Febrero de 1981. En 1987, Bill Haley fue incluido en el Salón de la Fama del Rock. En julio de 2005 los miembros sobrevivientes de los Cometas originales reresentaron a Haley cuando Bill Haley y sus Cometas fueron incluidos en el Hollywood RockWalk, una ceremonia en la que también estuvieron presentes sus segunda esposa y su hija menor. Los Cometas grabaron las palmas de sus manos en cemento y se dejó un espacio en blanco para Haley.as restantes (Lytle, Richards y Ambrose) continuan con la banda.

Phonograph records are objects that make music accessible and permanent, and I grew up surrounded by them.  My father, a motion picture projectionist, was also expected to be an unpaid disc jockey, someone who would fill the theatre with music between shows by spinning records from the projection booth.  I remember his story of the first explosion of rock 'n' roll.  During an intermission, he reached for a record whose title meant nothing to him, put it on with the volume turned off in the booth, and turned back to his book.  Then the theatre manger called him in a near-frenzy, “Take that God-damned record off!  The kids are dancing on the seats and ripping up the theatre!” 

It was the famous (or infamous) record here.   

As 78 rpm records gave way to microgroove, my father would occasionally bring an outmoded record home rather than see it thrown away.  He was intrigued by technology, and we had a Revere reel-to-reel tape recorder, which I learned how to use early on. 

Later, around 1968, he brought home something new, a portable cassette recorder and a few blank tapes. 

By this time, I had become converted to jazz, which I thought of as my music.  It as a secret pleasure: I thought of myself as a subversive, listening to Louis while everyone around me was deeply absorbed by rock.  In my suburban hermitage, I recorded jazz radio shows -- John S. Wilson’s “World of Jazz,” Ed Beach’s “Just Jazz,” and made them my soundtrack.  Records were not easy to get and I couldn’t afford all that I wanted, so the idea of tape-recording a precious performance and listening to it over and over shaped my first experiences of the music.  I lived for the moment when everything seemed cosmically aligned: Beach would be playing two hours of rare Jo Jones records on WRVR-FM; I would be home at the right time with a reel of blank tape; I could listen to it while the show was being broadcast; I would tape it to hear it again.  It would become mine.  In my memory, I can see those tape boxes, each one holding a precious hour or two of Buck Clayton, of 1940 Ellington, or Lee Wiley.    

I grew up on Long Island, an environment defined by the distance from one shopping mall to the next, and I recognize its inherent provincialism.  But for someone like myself, entranced by jazz, being born there rather than in Cape Breton was great good fortune.  In The New Yorker, I could read the names of musicians I had heard on radio or records.  They were playing live in New York City, an hour away by train and subway or car.          

I do not remember the details of the first live jazz I heard in Manhattan.  Was it in Town Hall or the Half Note?  But I prepared for this precious experience by bringing my cassette recorder with me.  It seemed logical rather than perverse to be a jazz anthropologist, a swing explorer.  Vasco DaGama of Dixieland, if you will.  I could poke my nose beyond my comfortable suburban environment, venture into the uncharted City, capture a performance live and return home with the reward.  Not gold or pepper or notes on the marriage rituals in New Guinea, but a homemade recording, however flawed, of the music I had heard last night.  A prize -- to revisit, to study, to treasure.

Of course the idea wasn’t new.  Jazz enthusiasts had been capturing the music in its native habitat since the Thirties, perhaps earlier.  I had read about airshots, “on location” acetates, and live recordings, essential parts of jazz’s mythology.  That these recordings had often been made secretly by amateurs happily breaking the rules was even better.  Their illicit behavior was evidence of deep devotion to the art.  They wanted to keep what they had heard once from vanishing forever.  Even though I didn’t think about the implications of what I wanted to do, I now think there was a touch of late-Sixties political rebellion implicit in it.  Why should the recording companies control the music, and why should I be deprived of doing so?  When I had seen Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars in 1967, I had been too naive to bring my Instamatic camera to take twelve snapshots.  Now Louis was dead, and I had only an autograph and my memory of what he had looked like, what he had played. 

I was not sufficiently prideful or self-deluded to think of myself as the Long Island reincarnation of Jerry Newman at Minton’s or Dean Benedetti in search of Bird.  But perhaps I could capture a memorable chorus or ensemble, even in low-fidelity.  Would it become valuable over time?  What did that matter?  It would be precious now.          

This may strike some readers as more peculiar than collecting stamps or baseball cards.  Some jazz-lovers may be satisfied to hear a beautiful performance once, never again.  But this art is so splendidly evanescent that the thought of it going away is nearly painful.  It cries out to be preserved.  In terms of jazz’s brief chronological history, I am a late-comer.  Many of the great players were dead by the late Sixties; many of their portraits greeted me when I turned to the obituary page of The New York Times: I saved those clippings until the sheaf got too depressing.  It felt as if all the creators were leaving town, and this may have goaded me into illicit tape-recording as a way of snaring what moments I could before it was too late. 

I would never see PeeWee Russell or Red Allen, Coleman Hawkins or Rex Stewart . . . but when Benny Morton or Jimmy Rushing played a gig, I would not let their sounds escape me.   

Thus my life of crime began.  Being a criminal is difficult, let me tell you.         

Many club-owners did not care about a couple of college kids with their cassette recorder, sitting as close to the bandstand as possible, as long as the kids bought beer or hamburgers at regular intervals, but some establishments were very serious about such infractions.  I nearly got thrown out of the Village Vanguard a few years ago when the waiter noticed something glittering in my lap – a minidisc recorder, its display a bright phosphorescent blue.  He said that I could stop recording right now or I would have to leave, in tones that suggested New York’s finest were pounding down Seventh Avenue South in hot pursuit of Another Jazz Miscreant.        

And it was even worse in larger places, with notices hanging everywhere that The Taking Of Photographs and The Use Of Recording Devices Is Prohibited By Law.  But I had seen that the ushers were not athletic enough to arrest everyone with a tiny Kodak (flashbulbs went off at many performances) so I thought that I might get away with my criminalities.  I became sly, sidling into a concert hall with a blue plastic shoulder bag, trying to look nonchalant, always a failed enterprise.  The bag held a newspaper or magazine – a thin subterfuge – covering my cassette recorder, a $60 Shure microphone, and extra batteries.  Illegal and delicious.  I evaded what I thought were the peering eyes of the usher, usually someone who wanted only to give me a program and seat me in the right place, then scuttle away.  In the semi-darkness, while people talked, rattled their programs, unwrapped their cough drops, I would connect the microphone to the recorder and drop the heavy wire down through the sleeve of my jacket so that the microphone could be hidden in my lap.  I knew that my applause --the sound of two hands clapping -- would be deafening on the tape, so I learned to look enthusiastic while pretending to clap. 

Emboldened by success, I brought a tape recorder to nearly every jazz performance I could.  Sometimes those tapes, heard the next day, were mediocre: routine music, badly recorded, turns out to be not worth the effort.  Occasionally, there were what college radio stations call "technical difficulties" and I had recorded nothing.  In those cases, crime certainly did not pay.  But I captured hours and hours of jazz that gave me pleasure.  Even the roll call of the players delights me now: just to think of pianists, I come up with Earl Hines, Eubie Blake, Dick Wellstood, Art Hodes, Joe Bushkin, Dave McKenna, Jimmy Andrews, Count Basie, Mark Shane, Teddy Wilson, Dick Hyman, Bill Evans, Jimmy Rowles, Ralph Sutton, Dill Jones, Hank Jones, Claude Hopkins, Chuck Folds, Don Friedman, Red Richards, Ellis Larkins, and two dozen others. 

Concert halls were usually terrible places for surreptitious recording because they were often terrible places to hear music.  The sound technicians at Carnegie Hall, for instance, where many of the Newport-New York concerts were held, apparently took perverse pleasure in making the piano sound as much unlike itself as possible.  The eye saw Teddy Wilson seated at a Steinway: the ear heard metal striking metal.  And you can imagine the acoustics at the top of Radio City Music Hall.  At the first of the 1972 jam sessions, Stu Zimny and I were seated in what seemed the upper reaches of the earth, next to a pair of Texas women who whooped happily when Gene Krupa hit his splash cymbal or when Roy Eldridge went for a high note.  Before the concert and during it, they most cordially offered us whiskey from bottles they had hidden in their pocketbooks; not to be outdone in gallantry, I offered them chocolate.  Both of us stuck to the stimulants we knew best.  But I cannot complain.  When I hear those tapes again, their exuberant hollering is part of the experience of the music, of having been there.      

Small clubs were easier to record in, and there was a better chance to be forgiven my wickedness, especially if I had spoken to the musicians beforehand and gotten their permission.  Since I looked at my jazz heroes with reverence, this approach often worked.  Kenny Davern, who had a powerful prejudice against playing into a microphone, showed me how to set mine so that it would record effectively.  Ruby Braff got so used to me and my friends that he dubbed us "Tapes," as in, "Hey, Tapes!" when he saw us.  

One Sunday in 1972, Bobby Hackett, a gracious man, looked down at my brand-new Teac reel-to-reel recorder, perhaps forty pounds, that I had lugged into Your Father’s Mustache in hopes of recording him.  I was sweating already, and his noticing the machine made me even more moist, from anxiety.  What if he growled, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"  But all he said was, mildly, "What brand is that?"  And when I told him, he smiled and said, "I have one like it at home," and went about the business of getting ready for the gig.     

But my criminality wasn't always well-received.  The trumpeter Joe Thomas fretted about our taping him at an outdoor concert in Battery Park.  He was insistent that that "the union man" would find us out and that he would get in trouble.  I don't remember how we soothed his fears (did we hide the recorder in a flowerbed?) but it took a good deal of placating before he let us go ahead. 

Some musicians were unwilling to be taped, and, in retrospect, I can't blame them.  Perhaps someone unscrupulous had taken advantage in the past.  The pianist Cyril Haynes refused to play a note until I put my recorder away.  

I can see in my mind's eye the brilliantly eccentric trombonist Dicky Wells, at the back of the bandstand clogged with other musicians, shaking his head from side to side in vehement "No-no-no!" and waving his arm and outstretched index finger in energetic arcs.  I remember a session featuring cornetist Wild Bill Davison, where I set up my microphone right under the bell of his horn.  He asked, gruffly, "Are you planning to record me with that?"  "Yes, Mr. Davison," I politely replied.  "Well, that will cost you one Scotch now and one for each set you record," he said in what seems now to have been a well-rehearsed speech.  I considered my budget for a moment and put the recorder back in the bag.  Was he disappointed at the failure of his bargain?  I couldn't tell. 

Many players looked horrified and refused, politely but vigorously, when I asked if they wanted me to mail them a copy of what they had just played.  Was it modesty?  Perhaps they had no particular desire to relive what they had done in what was supposed to be an informal situation.  I recall Ray Nance playing splendidly as part of a large ad-hoc ensemble at a Queens College concert (with Joe Newman, Garnett Brown, Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Al Foster, and others), and I recorded it from the audience.  Some months later, he appeared for a few nights at a tiny local club that had – for whatever reason – ventured into jazz.  Few people came to hear him, and on the second night, I brought a tape copy of that concert, approached him and offered it to him, thinking I was giving him a present.  He was pleasant enough, but I recall his looking at the box, now his, with mild puzzlement, as if I had given him a parakeet or a box of raisins.     

But taping made for delightfully weird interchanges with some players, made more aware of our presence by the machinery set in front of them.  Ruby Braff came over to Rob Rothberg and myself during a set-break one Tuesday night when he was guest star at the 54th Street Eddie Condon's.  He peered at the small notebook in which I was writing down personnel and song titles for future reference.  "What is that?" he asked.  I showed him, and he said, "Want my autograph?"  "Sure," I said, although we had met a dozen or more times already.  He took my pen and spent more time than I expected before handing the book to me, proudly chortling.  He had drawn a pistol, smoke curling out of its muzzle, with "Lucky Luciano" signed boldly beneath it.  A fellow law-breaker!     

After beginning my life of crime, in a few years I had piles of tapes, annotated and organized.  It may have made no sense to anyone not a member of the jazz world, but it meant that I could hear Vic Dickenson play Louis's famous WEST END BLUES, the cadenza note-for-note, as he had in an outdoor concert at Port Jefferson, New York.  I could hear Marty Grosz sing ISN’T LOVE THE STRANGEST THING, as he did when Soprano Summit appeared at the Jazz Museum in midtown.  On a precious cassette, I still have perhaps ten minutes of what might have been the ultimate small group -- Hackett, Vic, Teddy Wilson, Milt Hinton, and Jo Jones -- strolling through JUST YOU, JUST ME, BODY AND SOUL, and a slow blues -- from a Newport concert in 1974. 

Having these tapes did not prevent any of my heroes from dying, but bits and pieces of their music have been saved.

But "saved" is, alas, an overstatement.  The blank tapes I used were thin and inexpensive; even the best ones were inherently fragile.  The coating flaked off, or their sound got dimmer and dimmer.  So I no longer have many of my original tapes, surely an irony in itself.  In my mind's ear, I hear Al Cohn, Joe Newman, and Zoot Sims surging through THE RED DOOR and MOTORING ALONG at a Town Hall concert sponsored by Dick Gibson (was it 1970?).  The tape has been gone for years, proving that all things fall or decay, that objects disintegrate or scurry away, beyond our reach.  I didn't succeed in making permanent records, or at least the tapes I made proved to be impermanent.  But the idea of capturing -- or nearly-capturing -- jazz in full flight appealed to me then and continues to now.

And (as a postscript) such taping allowed me to make friends from Florida to Westoverledingen, Germany – friends who also loved the music and broke the rules.  I will write about such partners-in-crime in a future posting, among them the brilliant and generous John L. Fell. 

My crimes continue unabated, I state proudly.  The ancient cassette recorder gave way to a Sony minidisc recorder in 2005, thanks to my mentor Kevin Dorn, and I try to be an ethical, polite lawbreaker and ask the musicians’ permission to record whenever possible.  But if you see me in a club, vigorously enjoying the music, nodding my head, smiling broadly, but not applauding, you can be fairly sure that I am continuing my wicked (although fairly harmless) ways.  Come say hello – but not while the music is playing, if you don’t mind.      

It's more of the same in Don't Knock the Rock, in which reluctant star Arnie Haines (Alan Dale, a crooner who's not entirely convincing as a rocker), weary of life on the road, packs it in and heads home to sleepy Mellondale, wherever that is. The kids love him, but the adults, led by the odious old mayor, ban his "outrageous, depraved" music; Arnie then sets out to show them that "rock 'n' roll is a safe and sane dance for all young people." Once again, the plot is about as subtle as a Slayer concert, but Haley, Little Richard, and especially the hip and hilarious vocal trio the Treniers more than make up for that, as do several dynamic, beautifully choreographed dance numbers. The two-disc set includes no bonus features. --Sam Graham

Rock Around the Clock: Showcasing some of the best loved bands and songs of the early rock n' roll era this film was a sensation with teens when it debuted and raised quite a few eyebrows from their perplexed parents who just didn't "get it."Don t Knock the Rock: A rock and roller comes back to his home town to put on a show but meets opposition from the straight-laced locals. Don t Knock the Rock features performances by Bill Haley and His Comets (singing "Don't Knock The Rock" and " Hook Line and Sinker") and Little Richard (singing "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti").

Don't Knock the Rock / Rock Around the Clock is available at Amazon for $17.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• Don't Knock the Twist / Twist Around the Clock
• Rock, Rock, Rock!
• Rock Rock Rock! (Includes Bonus 1955 Rhythm & Blues Review)
• Jamboree
• High School Confidential

Music magazine Rolling Stone Indonesia discovered 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time (23 rd edition, July 2008). Two of them are among this blog collections. Song (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock, taken from album entitled Bill Haley and His Comets (1954), is in the 30 th rank. This song cited as the first rock and roll song which achieved Number One in the chart. Danny Cedron who played guitar in rock n roll style become role model for the next generation of rock n roll guitarists.

Other song is Beat It from album Thriller by Michael Jackson (1982). This song which is ranked in the 81 st position cited as a soul hit with heavy riff and melody. Paul Jackson jr. and Lukather played hard riff, an Eddie Van Halen played a fast tempo melody. At least, if there is a researcher for music history wish to find those two albums, this blog can show the historical albums. *

Apparently, Rock Around The Clock was a fox trot.

Bill Haley werd als kind thuis omringd met muziek: zijn vader speelde banjo en zijn moeder speelde piano. In 1938 begon hij met optredentjes geven. Toen zong hij en speelde daar gitaar bij.

Op 22-jarige leeftijd trouwde hij met Dorothy Crowe. Op 12 april 1954 nam Bill Haley met zijn band The Comets in New York het nummer Rock around the clock op. Dit was het begin van de hele rock 'n’ roll-geschiedenis. Mede door de (dans)film Rock around the Clock uit 1956, waarin Haley's nummer was opgenomen, verspreidde de rock 'n' roll zich snel over de wereld.

De optredens van Bill Haley en zijn band in de jaren 1954 tot 1958 in Europa werden als sensationeel ervaren en leidden soms zelfs tot gewelddadigheden.

Bill Haley was in de jaren '70 verslaafd aan alcohol. Hij overleed in 1981 aan een hersentumor.

Bron: Wikipedia

• By leaving the children in the public schools, where they will be taught—starting in kindergarten—that Christian morality is wrong, the SBC has pulled its own teeth.  What are children to think, when their church and their parents say “gay marriage” is wrong, yet leave them in schools where they are taught “gay marriage” is right? If Christian teachings are supposed to be authoritative, are not the schools in the wrong for teaching the opposite? But if the schools are wrong, will not the children eventually have to ask, “Then what are we doing here?” 

• How is it that the first drink [of beer] from a tankard tastes best? Perhaps it’s on account of sin, because our flesh and our lips are sinful.  ~ Martin Luther

• I’m like a one-eyed cat peepin’ in a seafood store. 

• ‘Finally, how—if it can be done at all—can the church reclaim the authority it has surrendered to science?’ 

• ‘Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated.  And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable.  The Earth does not have a fever.  Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.’  ~ John Coleman, Creator of The Weather Channel 

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: The Honeydrippers

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6183624519723370404&q=Honey+Drippers&ei=qthWSO-HEYaCqwKr8vDqDg&hl=en]

• There are so many things tragically wrong with this story that I wouldn’t even know where to begin commenting upon it. 

• This is the beginning of something big. 

• Is this book better than Oz, Narnia, Tolkien, and Alice in Wonderland?

• NEITHER HERE NOR THERE:  Nothing mitigates the tedium of a Monday workday quite like the cool that is Steely Dan oozing from my headphones.

• ‘Has it come then to this, that the chaste spouse of Christ is reduced to borrow the meretricious adornment of the "scarlet whore," in order to catch the unholy admiration of the ungodly?’  ~  Rev. Robert L. Dabney on the church and culture.

• As the U.S. Government continues ‘God’s Work’ in the Middle East, Iraqi Christians, who once thrived there, continue to be martyred and persecuted. 

• ‘[John] McCain acknowledged, "a program of this nature could be construed as 'brainwashing' or 'thought control' and could come in for a great deal of criticism." 

• The man who played Forrest Gump as a child recently completed his enlistment in the Army—after having served a tour in Iraq. 

• I’ll bet you didn’t hear much—if anything at all—about this story in the Lamestream Media. 

• Wait a minute!  You’re telling me that the Soviets were dishonest?  I am shocked—SHOCKED!! 

• As if we needed more evidence that the church in Europe is morally bankrupt. 

• Now this is my kind of election! 

Last year, the New Orleans Times Picayune called Bobby Charles a "lost legend."  That is perhaps the only way to describe Robert "Bobby" Charles Guidry, a coonass who came out of Louisiana in the 1950s and became one of the first important songwriters of the rock and roll era.  Bobby Charles, as he became known, was a recording artist for Chicago blues/R&B label Chess Records but he made his impact as a songwriter: "See You Later Alligator" for Bill Haley & the Comets; "Walking To New Orleans," one of Fats Domino's greatest hits; and "(I Don't Know Why I Love You) But I Do," for Clarence "Frogman" Henry.

By the late 1960s, Bobby Charles ran with the likes of Bob Dylan and in 1971 he found himself in Woodstock, N.Y., recording a solo album with Rick Danko and members of the Band.  The result, his self-titled debut, was released in 1972 and its songs mixed Charles' swamp rock with the Band's brand of Americana.  In addition to Danko, drummer Levon Helm, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson and New Orleans stalwart Dr. John played on the album.  This is more than just hippie music - it's a classic of what we would later call "roots rock."  He appears on the Band's Last Waltz album (but not the movie) singing "Way Down Yonder In New Orleans."

Today Bobby Charles is plagued with health problems including a bout with cancer.  He has recorded on and off over the years but makes a decent living off royalties from his old songs.  Bobby Charles promised in that Times Picayune story from 2007 that he has enough songs to make a new album.  Hearing some new songs from this legend would be welcome indeed.

MP3: "Grow Too Old"

MP3: "Small Town Talk"

MP3: "Save Me Jesus"

"Lost Legend" feature story in New Orleans Times-Picayune

Bobby Charles fan website

I haven't posted an Elvis vid in a while, so here is the Elvis version.

Damn, Elvis is such a hottie!

Има доста претенденти да са бащи на рок-н-рола, но Бил Хейли се оказал в нужното време и с нужната песен.

Песента е написана през 1953 г., а през 1955 година озвучава филма "Blackboard Jungle" с Глен Форд в главната роля. Песента е изхвърлена на върха на чарта "Билборд" и се задържа там 8 седмици. Това е и първият сингъл продаден над 1 милион броя в Великобритания и Германия. Бил Хейли е първия рок-н-рол певец направил турне в Европа.

п.п. Ако не се лъжа през 70-те години, в кукления театър в София поставиха пиесата "Съкровището на Силвестър" в която се изпълняваше " Rock Around the Clock"-на магнетофонен запис. Беше невъзможно да си купиш билет за представлението. Може би заради песента ?

Vader Abraham live bij Eddie Wallen 75 jaar in het sportpaleis Antwerpen - het smurfenlied

Vader Abraham van harte gefeliciteerd! Ik zou zeggen neem een biertje of 3 liter en geniet. Dan gaan we nu snel over naar ons nummer 5 geluid van deze week. 

En dan nu een artiest die door steeds meer mensen herkent word. Weer een plaats gestegen. Hier is Marco.

3. (4) Marco de Hollander live - ik vlieg de berg af naar beneden (2e week)

Ja mensen, het is me allemaal wat.  Drinkt U tijdig? Gaan we snel door naar de enige internationale artiest die hoge ogen gooit bij Uw Dop van de Tube. De keizer van de rock & roll. Live tijdens zijn laatste toernee door Engeland in 2000 min 21. Uniek en schitterend. Alweer een plaats gestegen.

2. (3) Bill Haley & the Comets live - hitmedley deel 1 (2e week)

Oejoejoej. De tijd vliegt als het gezellig is. We zijn alweer toegekomen aan de nummer 1 van Dop van de Tube. Een man die op tragiese wijze dit jaar is overleden, maar een liedje aan ons heeft achtergelaten die we nooit kunnen en zullen vergeten. De eerste nummer 1 van dit programma en nog steeds de enige nummer 1 hit die we hebben. Ik neem afscheid van U. Bezoek eens ons speciaal 3 liter biercafé en tot de volgende tube. Hier is nog steeds de onbetwiste nummer 1 en ik zeg U alvast. Tot de volgende week!

1. (1) Arne Janssen live - meisjes met rode haren (2e week)

Dop van de Tube is een programma van webjockey Disgo.

Ramses Shaffy & Alderliefste live in het Vondelpark Amsterdam ''07 - laat me/vivre

Zo, de kop is er af. En dan nu snel naar ons nummer 5 geluid

5. (nieuw) Bennie Neyman - je hoeft me niet te zeggen hoe ik leven moet

En dan nu een artiest die hoge ogen gaat gooien tijdens het a.s. Europees Kampioenschap Voetbal. Door velen getipt als Hollands Next Star, hier is Marco!

4. (nieuw) Marco de Hollander live - ik vlieg de berg af naar beneden

Ons eerste internationale artiest in de dop. De keizer van de rock & roll. Live tijdens zijn laatste toernee door Engeland in 2000 min 21. Uniek en schitterend. Komt ie!

3. (nieuw) Bill Haley & the Comets live - hitmedley deel 1

Jaja, swingen in de dop. En ons nummer twee geluid komt rechtstreeks uit de carnavalstijd. Nog steeds zeer hoog genoteerd. U kent 'm wel. Het is DJ Matze met de hoogst genoteerde polonaise muziek. Neem nog een biertje.

2. (nieuw) DJ Matze live at the 1 Euro party - wo sind die hoppe?

De tijd vliegt als het gezellig is. We zijn alweer toegekomen aan de nummer 1 van Dop van de Tube. Een man die op tragiese wijze dit jaar is overleden, maar een liedje aan ons heeft achtergelaten die we nooit kunnen en zullen vergeten. De eerste nummer 1 van dit programma en we hopen nog vele afleveringen te mogen maken met U als kijker. Ik neem afscheid van U. Drink tijdig en tot de volgende tube. Hier is de onstervelijke Arne Janssen!

1. (nieuw) Arne Janssen live - meisjes met rode haren

Dop van de Tube is een programma van webjockey Disgo.

"Tom Dooley"

(1958) Mawhera

.

When John Lennon heard this style of music thats when he knew he wanted to be in a band. The Beatles even started their own "Skiffle" group "The Quarry Men" before they even became "The Siver Beatles". Lonnie's song "Tom Dooley" is a classic and is very catchy indeed and never fails to get people singing this in the car on a long drive. I wonder if anyone has done this as a re-make yet? I would gamble yes, without even having to check.

To look at Lonnie Donegan today, in pictures taken 40 years ago when he was topping the British charts and hitting the top Ten in America, dressed in a suit, his hair cut short and strumming an acoustic guitar, he looks like a musical non-entity. But in 1954, before anyone (especially anybody in England) knew what rock 'n roll was, Donegan was cool, and his music was hot. He's relatively little remembered outside of England, but Donegan shares an important professional attribute with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Sex Pistols -- he invented a style of music, skiffle, that completely altered the pop culture landscape and the youth around him, and for a time completely ruled popular music through that new form. What's more, his music, like that of Presley and Haley, was vital to the early musical careers and future histories of the Beatles, the Stones, and hundreds of other groups. And he did it in 1954, before Elvis was known anywhere outside of Memphis and before Bill Haley was perceived as anything but a western swing novelty act.

Anthony James Donegan was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 29, 1931, the son of a classical violinist who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra. Donegan received no encouragement to play an instrument or choose music as a profession, for his father, like many talented musicians during the economic slump of the 1930's, was continually out of work. The family, which moved to East London in 1933, had no desire to see him go into a dead-end profession. He first became interested in the guitar at age nine, but it was to be another five years before he took matters into his own hands and bought his first guitar for £12.50 (about $70 American in those days).

While Donegan was racking up hits--"Bring A Little Water, Sylvie" (#7), "Don't You Rock Me, Daddy-O" (#4), "Cumberland Gap (#6), and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?" (#3, and #5 in the U.S.) all in less than three years--thousands of skiffle groups were springing up all over England. New artists, most notably Tommy Steele and, later, Cliff Richard, started out playing skiffle music and put their own stamp on the material before moving on to other sounds. Among the many tens of thousands of British teens he inspired were members of the Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers, and the Searchers. By mid-1958, however, skiffle was waning rapidly as a commercial sound, but Donegan continued to appear on the charts right into 1962. Only when the next wave of young rockers came along, who like Donegan had their own ideas about music and what they wanted to do with it, did he finally fade from the charts.

He continued to record sporadically during the 1960's, including some sessions at Hickory Records in Nashville with Charlie McCoy, Floyd Cramer, and the Jordanaires, but after 1964, he was primarily occupied as a producer for most of the decade at Pye Records. Among those he worked with during this period was future Moody Blues guitarist-singer Justin Hayward. Donegan's attempt at a recording comeback late in the 1960's was unsuccessful, but in 1974, a new boomlet for skiffle music in Germany brought him on tour and into the studio anew, and the following year he and Chris Barber toured together and recorded a new long-player, The Great Re-Union Album. In 1976, however, after another series of shows and recordings in Germany, Donegan suffered a heart attack that left him sidelined, and he moved to California to recuperate.

Lonnie Donegan remains a beloved pioneer of English rock 'n roll, and the king of skiffle. In the late '90s, his musical credibility came around again to perhaps the highest level of respect of his life, with several multi-disc hits and career-wide compilations available. Donegan passed away November 3, 2002, following heart problems. Unlike a lot of American rock & roll of the mid-'50s, and even more British attempts at the music from the same period and after, Donegan's music remains eminently enjoyable and enlivening. ~ Bruce Eder

For John Lennon see Number 639

For the Beatles see Number 947, 894 & 587

For Elvis Presley see Number 840

For Rolling Stones see Number 767 & Number 689

For Cliff Richard see Number 739 & Number 666

What does Rolling Stone think about Lonnie Donegan?
Even more notably for rock & roll fans, the song prompted the young George Harrison and John Lennon to pick up the guitar. "Lonnie Donegan was a much bigger influence on rock than he was ever given credit for," Harrison wrote in his autobiography, I, Me, Mine. "He was a big hero of mine."
Aside from the Beatles (who began as the skiffle-minded Quarrymen), other British Invasion members had their roots in skiffle bands: the Who (the Detours), Van Morrison (the Sputniks) and Graham Nash (Two Teens). Ironically, after Donegan's disciples found fame in the mid-Sixties, his own popularity waned and he recorded only sporadically. In 1978, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, Brian May and others joined him for his comeback album, Putting on the Style. Donegan also released The Skiffle Sessions: Live In Belfast 1998, a concert album with Barber and Van Morrison in 2000.

For George Harrison see Number 806

For The Who see Number 556

For Van Morrison see Number 987

For Graham Nash see Number 660

For Elton John see Number 531

For Ringo Starr see Number 901

For Brian May see Number 805, Number 799, Number 747 & Number 539

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (Zip) and the album ranked at (Nah uh)

This song has a crowbarred rating of 66.9 out of 108

Previous Song 733 ..... Next Song 735

Tags: Lonnie Donegan, Skiffle, 1958, John Lennon, Quarrymen, Silver Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers, Floyd Cramer, Moody Blues, Justin Hayward, Van Morrison, The Who, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, Brian May, Music, Youtube, Music Video, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Definitive 1000 Songs of all TimeVideo,

Mawhera

Search Artist here

1-2-3-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

Happy unofficial 54th Anniversary to Rock and Roll! Fifty-Four years ago today the hit classic "Rock Around the Clock" was recorded. But it was not Bill Haley who recorded it originally. That honor goes to Sonny Dae and the Knights. Bill Haley's version is considered the first rock and roll song ever recorded. Bill's rendition of the song was used in the movie Blackboard Jungle. Watch the video of the original version, and read the historic information added to the video.

Here is Bill Haley performing the song;

The choreography was mad. See ya later alligator!

Embora diversos integrantes do Comets tenham ficado famosos, foi Bill Haley quem permaneceu como o astro. Com sua postura energética ao palco, muitos fãs consideram-nos tão revolucionários para sua época quanto os Beatles e os Rolling Stones foram para as suas.

Mais de 100 músicos tocaram com Bill Haley & His Comets entre 1952 e 1981, muitos tornando-se favoritos dos fãs. Várias tentativas de reunir a banda têm sido feita desde os anos 80.

Os Comets originais, que tocaram com Haley entre 1954 e 1955, iniciaram uma turnê mundial em 2005, tocando em casas de concerto nos Estados Unidos e na Europa. Dois outros grupos também clamam a posse do nome Bill Haley's Comets, e também se apresentam nos Estados Unidos: um trazendo o baterista (de 1965 a 1968) John "Bam-Bam" Lane e o outro o baixista (de 1959 a 1969) Al Rappa.

Em março e julho de 2005 os integrantes do grupo de 1954-55, agora chamados simplesmente de The Comets, fizeram várias aparições em Nova Iorque e em Los Angeles como parte das comemorações dos 50 anos do rock and roll e dos 80 anos de Bill Haley. Durante um concerto em 6 de julho a filha mais nova de Bill, Gina Haley, cantou com a banda; uma aparição similar fora feita em março pelo filho mais velho de Bill, John W. Haley.

O The Comets pretende gravar um novo CD de versões, particularmente de canções do The Who, The Beatles, Bob Dylan e de seus antigos sucessos.

Ele nasceu em Highland Park, Michigan e foi criado na Pensilvânia. Em 1946, Halley formou seu primeiro grupo profissional, uma banda country chamada Down Homers, depois da qual ele passou a seguir carreira solo. Haley lançou inúmeros compactos country nos anos 40, sem sucesso, enquanto trabalhava de músico itinerante e DJ. Em 1951 ele e sua nova banda The Saddlemen resolveram tocar em outro estilo, gravando versões das músicas "Rocket 88" e "Rock this Joint" de Jackie Brenston. O sucesso relativo alcançado por elas convenceu Haley de que ele poderia ser um roqueiro famoso. Em 1952 o Saddlemen passou a se chamar Bill Haley & His Comets e, em 1952 a composição de Haley, "Crazy Man Crazy" tornou-se o primeiro rock a entrar nas paradas de sucesso americana.

Em 1953 uma canção chamada "Rock Around the Clock" foi composta para Haley, mas ele só conseguiria gravá-la em 12 de abril de 1954. Inicialmente não obteve suceso, mas Haley logo alcançaria fama mundial com sua versão de "Shake, Rattle and Roll" de Big Joe Turner, que venderia milhões de cópias. Haley e sua banda foram primordiais ao divulgar a música conhecida como "Rock and Roll" entre o público branco, depois de anos considerada como um movimento underground. Quando "Rock Around the Clock" apareceu na trilha sonora do filme BlackBoard Jungle, encadeou uma revolução musical que abriu as portas para talentos como Elvis Presley. Haley continuou a emplacar sucessos nos anos 50, como "See You Later Alligator", e estrelou o primeiro musical cinematográfico de rock and roll. Sua fama logo seria ultrapassada nos EUA pelo mais famoso e mais sexy Elvis, mas Haley continuaria a ser um grande astro na América Latina e na Europa pelo resto de sua carreira. Seus últimos shows foram na África em 1980. Ele foi incluído no Hall da Fama do Rock and Roll em 1987.

Os Comets originais de 1954/55 ainda continuam se apresentando ao redor do mundo. Embora na faixa etária dos 70 aos 82, a banda não mostra sinais de cansaço e recentemente lançou um DVD ao vivo.

Haley faleceu em sua casa no Harlingen, Texas em 1981. Ele foi o verdadeiro ícone do Rock N' Roll dos anos 50 e 60 e a crítica afirma que Bill foi o pai do Ritmo fervoroso das décadas.

Rock

1. Deep Purple
Title: Fireball
Publisher: EMI (1971)

2. George Harrison
Title: Best of George Harrison
Publisher: Porlophone

3. Bill Haley and His Comets
Title: Rock Around the Clock
Publisher: Decca