Bill  Haley

William John Clifton Haley was born on 6^th July 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan. His father was from Kentucky and his mother had migrated from England during her teens. Later his family moved to Boothwyn near Chester in Pennsylvania. His father played the banjo and his mother taught the piano. As a child he sang and played guitar at local variety shows to raise money for local causes. Haley was a shy child, due partly to the fact that he had been blind in his left eye since infancy. In his late teens, he found work playing the local amusement parks, which featured live entertainment.

He cut his first record, Candy Kisses, when he was eighteen, then hit the road for four years as a country singer and guitarist with various country and western bands. Haley avoided being called up into the armed forces in WWII because of his disability. He joined a group called the Downhomers who were looking for a yodeler to replace their lead singer who had been drafted. In 1947, he left the group and returned to Chester, where he married his childhood sweetheart. In 1948, calling himself the Ramblin' Yodeler, he became a disc jockey on a radio show at the local WPWA station.

Backed by his new group, the Four Aces of Western Swing which he had put together to perform on his radio show, he released his first record. The band disbanded in middle of 1949 and Haley formed a new band called the Saddlemen. In 1950, they were signed by the Philadelphia label, Essex. Fronted by Haley wearing a ten-gallon Stetson covering his trademark kiss-curl, they recorded a handful of songs including a cover of Jackie Brenston's R&B hit, Rocket 88. In 1952, he dropped his cowboy image and the band released a cover of Jimmy Preston's R&B hit, Rock This Joint. It sold seventy-five thousand copies.

In 1953, renamed Bill Haley and the Comets, they released their own song, Crazy Man Crazy, and it became the first rock 'n' roll record to make the Billboard pop chart. In 1954, he left the Essex label and signed with Decca Records. He cut his first record for his new label, a cover of Sunny Dae's 1952 original recording, Rock Around The Clock. It was released as a B-side in 1954 with only moderate success. The group’s follow-up was a cover version of Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll, which made the Top Ten in both the US and UK in the spring of 1954, selling a million copies. Follow-up hits included Dim, Dim the Lights, Mambo Rock, and Birth of the Boogie.

In 1955, Rock Around The Clock was re-issued when it was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Blackboard Jungle. The song became a worldwide success and a part of rock 'n' roll history. The band had a quick succession of Top Forty hits including Burn That Candle, See You Later, Alligator, Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie, Razzle Dazzle, R-O-C-K and The Saint’s Rock’n’Roll. A 1956 movie, Rock Around The Clock, made Haley a star in the US and abroad. The band toured Britain to scenes of mast hysteria. Authentic rock 'n ' rollers were scarce in the UK.

The tour also signified something of a decline and by the end of the tour, Haley was seen as something of a spent force. His next movie, Don’t Knock The Rock, featuring the songs Rip It Up and Calling All Comets was something of a flop. Haley and his band played the nostalgia shows for many years until his death at his home in Harlingen, Texas on 9^th February 1981. The Comets continued to perform after his death. At the time of his death, he had sold an estimated sixty million records with Rock Around the Clock  alone selling over twenty-two million copies.

Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.