We end our musical birthday weekend celebrating the man and tune that introduced rock and roll to the world and blew the doors wide open for all that has happened since then! This man and this song ignited the fire that set countless millions of teens to dancing! And thanks to Cliff Richard, Jet Harris pretty much introduced Fender Bass guitars to the UK!
We begin with the genesis of rock and roll, even before Elvis! July 6 would have been the 99th birthday of one of the originators of rock and roll, the legendary Bill Haley (July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981). He, along with Elvis, Buddy, Chuck, and Little Richard, was one of the original 5 who created the genre. Bill, known as “the Father of Rock and Roll,” is unique in that he and his Comets introduced the world to rock and roll at the very beginning. Even Billboard splits their charts into BRATC (Before “Rock Around the Clock”) and ARATC (After “Rock Around the Clock”)!
From Wikipedia,
Haley and his band were important in launching the music known as "Rock and Roll" to a wider, mostly white audience after a period of it being considered an underground genre. When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared behind the opening credits of the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle ...it soared to the top of the American Billboard chart for eight weeks. The single is commonly used as a convenient line of demarcation between the "rock era" and the music industry that preceded it; Billboard separated its statistical tabulations into 1890-1954 and 1955–present. After the record rose to number one, Haley was quickly given the title "Father of Rock and Roll," by the media, and by teenagers that had come to embrace the new style of music. With the song's success, the age of rock music began overnight and instantly ended the dominance of the jazz and pop standards performed by Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, and others.Success came at somewhat of a price as the new music confused and horrified most people over the age of 30, leading to Cold War-fueled suspicion that rock-and-roll was part of a communist plot to corrupt the minds of American teenagers. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover attempted to dig up incriminating material on Bill Haley, who took to carrying a gun with him on tours for his own safety.
”Rock Around the Clock" was the first record ever to sell over one million copies in both Britain and Germany and, in 1957, Haley became the first major American rock singer to tour Europe. Haley continued to score hits throughout the 1950s ...and he starred in the first rock and roll musical movies Rock Around the Clock and Don’t Knock the Rock, both in 1956. Haley was already 30 years old and so he was soon eclipsed in the United States by the younger, sexier Elvis, but continued to enjoy great popularity in Latin America, Europe, and Australia through the 1960s.
While it got everyone's attention in 1955 as the opening song for Blackboard Jungle, a classic noir juvenile delinquent flick, when it was the name of Alan Freed's first 1956 jukebox movie Rock Around the Clock, that was the birth of rock and roll in the movies. Alan Freed made and starred in teen movies built around great music and dancing, and besides Bill Haley and the Comets, also introduced Little Richard, Chuck Berry, the Platters, Frankie Lymon and a bunch of other great groups to the mass media. And yes, Amerika freaked out in 1956. Rock and roll AND civil rights at the same time blew some minds. Too much dancing, I suppose. Which reminds me....
On with the tribute! We now go back to the very beginning of rock and roll to a tune that had “foxtrot with vocal” stamped on the original 45. This comes from an era when people actually did dance, and dance with all they had! For your enjoyment, originally released in April 1954, a song that became THE soundtrack tune from the movie Blackboard Jungle which introduced “rock and roll” as it blazed into the mass consciousness!
From the Washington Square television show hosted by Ray Bolger, a rare find from early tv! Here's Bill Haley and the Comets in a very live 1956 performance of the iconic "Rock Around the Clock."
From a 1954 short movie, here’s a great clip of Bill Haley and the Comets performing their first hit from 1953, “Crazy Man Crazy” plus “Straight Jacket” and the 1955 hit, “Shake Rattle and Roll”
We now move to the first Alan Freed jukebox movie Rock Around the Clock, a film designed to expose teens to rock and roll! Here's the original clip from the film of THE tune that blew the doors down! “Rock Around the Clock”
From the same movie, a “live” performance of their 1956 hit “See You Later Alligator” followed by Bill’s 1952 hit, “Rock A-Beatin’ Boogie.” We’ll close Bill’s contributions to the movie with “Razzle Dazzle”
Thanks to the second Alan Freed jukebox movie Don’t Knock the Rock, we have a great clip of their “live” performance of the 1956 hit “Rip It Up”
We finish this section with a great live video from Belgium in 1958, with Bill giving a very upbeat performance for a lot of suits of “See You Later Alligator” and “Rock Around the Clock.” (I wonder if the people in tuxes had any idea what was happening….)
I found the whole 27 minute show, and it’s a classic! Live at the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels in October 1958, a 9 song set! Bill Haley and the Comets Live in Belgium - 1958
This is where it began, and he went from C&W to rock and roll! In 1951, this was Bill’s first hit when the Comets were still known as the Saddlemen. Jackie Preston had a hit with it, so Bill figured he would too! Here's the studio version of one of the first prototypical rock and roll tunes, the legendary “Rocket 88”
He was looking around for another hit, and he decided this one originally done by Jimmy Preston in 1949 would be just that! It is said this is the song which turned him into a rock and roller, with his version the first rockabilly song ever recorded. Here's his 1952 hit (before "Rock Around the Clock"), "Rock The Joint." (I have this on the original 45!) You'll note this served as a prototype for "Rock Around the Clock" with many of the same licks. By way of comparison, here's the original by Jimmy Preston! "Rock The Joint."
From Birmingham, England, a great live concert from 1979! Bill Haley Live in Concert 1979
(Set list: “Shake Rattle and Roll,” “Razzle Dazzle,” “Rudy Rock,” “When The Saints Play Rock and Roll,” “See You Later Alligator,” “Rock Around the Clock,” “Rock This Joint,” “Me and Bobby Magee,” “Rock A-Beatin’ Boogie,” “Rip It Up,” Chuck Berry’s “The Promised Land,” and back to “When the Saints Come Marchin’ In”
Live and rocking in the 1980 documentary Blue Suede Shoes (not long before he died), here are Bill and the Comets performing their 1952 hit, “Rock the Joint”
As usual, we'll finish this birthday tribute to Bill Haley with a live performance on American Bandstand in 1960 of his iconic tune that opened the doors to all that followed, “Rock Around the Clock”
Eternal gratitude to you, Mister Bill Haley. You and your Comets were the first to open the doors to rock and roll, capturing the public imagination and changing the world forever, which is no small thing. And in an interesting personal connection, we both shared fond memories of Grandmom and Pop Jones, since we both hung around their drugstore back when I was very young and you were founding rock and roll! Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rock the Joint, Rip It Up, and I'll See You Later, Alligator....
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And now, the great Jet Harris (6 July 1939 – 18 March 2011). He was with the Shadows, stars in their own right as well as the backing band for Cliff Richard, from 1958-1962. You can get all his early work with the Shadows and Cliff Richard by visiting the 2023 Birthday Tribute to Hank Marvin of the Shadows in last November's archives. After he left the Shads, he had a prominent solo career that abruptly ended in a car wreck that almost killed him. What follows is what I could find from those early days, as well as some performances from the 90s.
From Guitar World, “If it wasn't for Jet Harris," Paul McCartney once said, "I would never have picked up a bass guitar.” A founder member of The Shadows, and a solo star for a short period in the 60s – until it all went wrong – Jet Harris was the inspiration for an entire generation of British bass players, including McCartney, John Paul Jones and Lemmy. “Jet Harris was very innovative for his time, given the band he was in,” said Lemmy. “He gave me the idea that the bass player didn’t have to stand at the back.”
Blessed with good looks, a moody persona, a chip on his shoulder and a monkey on his back, he was Britain’s first rock’n’roll bad boy and (if you were standing far enough away) the coolest guy around. Jet was the first pro bass guitarist in the country and certainly one of the finest, first in one of the UK’s most influential bands – The Shadows – and then as a solo hitmaker who played the first Fender VI Bass to arrive on UK shores. His influence on British bass playing was so great that in 2010 Fender presented him with an award for effectively launching the bass guitar in the early 60s."
We begin with THE iconic video of the Shadows doing the Jerry Lordan monster hit which went to #1 for 6 weeks in 1960! It’s a very early clip of the Shadows with Jet’s Fender Bass and Hank’s guitar starring in "Apache."
Another performance by Jet, this time with Tony Meehan at the 1963 NME Show! Here’s a great live performance of their #1 UK hit, also written by Jerry Lordan, “Diamonds.”
They followed this with yet another written by Jerry Lordan which went to #2, “Scarlett O’Hara.”
Their last hit of the era is a tune that went to #4 UK, “Applejack.”
After that he had a car wreck which effectively ended his career at the time, but he came back after a while to get back in the saddle!
From 1977, live at Gloucester Prison, Jet and the Diamonds giving a live performance of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” which we’ll follow with a medley of “Perfidia” and “Blue Moon.”
From 1996, a rare recording of Jet Harris’ version of the classic “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”
The 1998 reunion featuring Jet with Bruce Welch playing “Scarlett O’Hara” and “Diamonds” is gone this year. Instead, I found this great live video clip of Jet and the Shadowers at Bruce Welch's Shadowmania 2010 playing “Diamonds.” From the same gig, “Scarlett O’Hara”
It’s back! Here’s the 15 minute performance by Jet and Hank together at the Birmingham Fender Guitar clinic titled “Hank Marvin and Jet Harris Together Again.”
For our closer, a clip from November 2010 just a few weeks before he died. It seemed fitting to close with the tune that catapulted Jet to international fame with the Shadows 50 years before, the iconic “Apache”
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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