It’s a kind of musical oddities. “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” the file extensively held to have introduced rock’n’roll to Britain, didn’t even get close to the UK High 10 first time round. Furthermore, the person delivering this important message of teenage riot, Invoice Haley, was already practically 30 years previous on the time. Conversely, he was solely 55 when he handed away on February 9, 1981.
However the arrival of “Rock Around The Clock” within the UK chart, on January 7, 1955, was a significant landmark. The recording in query was made at Pythian Temple Studio, at 135 West seventieth Road, New York, on April 12 the yr earlier than. It wasn’t even the primary UK chart entry for Invoice and his group the Comets, who have been concurrently having fun with a a lot greater hit with “Shake Rattle and Roll,” which climbed to No.4 and had 14 weeks on the chart. The brand new hit went on to peak at No.17 and was on the bestsellers for exactly two weeks.
You’d additionally must be one thing of a trivia knowledgeable to know the names of the writers of the music that got here to signify the industrial explosion of rock’n’roll. It was written by Philadelphia composer Max C. Freedman, who’d had a number of successes courting again to the tip of World Warfare II, with writer and promoter James C. Myers, whose profession additionally went again to the Forties. He used the pen title Jimmy DeKnight for the collaboration.
“Rock Around The Clock” was first recorded by Sonny Dae on the Arcade label in 1954, with Haley’s model (lower three weeks later) following that Could, however solely because the B-side of one other monitor from the identical session, “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town.”
Actually, “Rock” was a chart file in Britain earlier than it was within the US, if just for these two weeks. After being featured within the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, it then made the American survey in Could, and went on to spend eight weeks at No.1, extensively hailed as the primary chart-topper of the rock’n’roll period.
Take heed to the 50s playlist for extra by Invoice Haley and his Comets and different key acts of the last decade.
That success, on Decca, prompted a re-release on Brunswick within the UK, and this time, the music actually took off, spending three weeks at No.1 in November and December. Then “Rock” confirmed its endurance, charting once more in Britain in September 1956, when it hit No.5. As subsequent generations realized of its significance, it went to No.20 in 1968 and No.12 in 1974. That final outing got here after the music was distinguished within the film smash American Graffiti, which additionally took it again to No.39 in America.
Learn extra concerning the lifetime of Invoice Haley in our interview together with his son, Invoice Haley Jr.
On January 28, 1956, the group entered the US album chart with an LP additionally entitled Rock Round The Clock, a Decca compilation that includes that and different Haley hits.
Purchase or stream “Rock Around The Clock” on Invoice Haley and his Comets’ Common Masters Assortment.
