From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the rock and roll band. For their self titled album, see Bill Haley and His Comets (1960 album).
| Bill Haley & His Comets | |
|---|---|
Bill Haley & His Comets, c. 1955
Left to right: Joey D'Ambrosio, Dick Richards in the back row, Bill Haley |
|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, The Kingsmen, The Lifeguards, B.H. Sees Combo |
| Origin | Chester, Pennsylvania |
| Genres | Rock and roll, country, rockabilly |
| Years active | 1949–1952 as Saddlemen; 1952–1981 as Bill Haley & His Comets; 1981–present as The Comets, Bill Haley's Comets |
| Labels | Atlantic, Keystone Records, Cowboy, Holiday, Essex, Decca, Warner Bros. Records, Orfeón, Dimsa, Newtown, Guest Star, Logo, APT, Gone, United Artists, Roulette, Sonet, Buddah, Antic |
| Associated acts | The Jodimars |
| Members | Joey Ambrose Dick Richards David Byrd Jackson Haney Al Rappa Lenny Longo (separate groups called Bill Haley's Comets) |
| Past members | Bill Haley Johnny Grande Billy Williamson Rudy Pompilli Al Rex Franny Beecher Marshall Lytle Ralph Jones Nick Nastos John "Bam-Bam" Lane and more than 100 others |
Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band, also known by the names Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets
(and variations thereof), was the earliest group of white musicians to
bring rock and roll to the attention of white America and the rest of
the world. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group placed nine singles in
the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten.[1]
Bandleader Bill Haley had previously been a country music performer; after recording a country and western-styled version of "Rocket 88", a rhythm and blues song, he changed musical direction to a new sound which came to be called rock and roll.
Although several members of the Comets became famous, Bill Haley
remained the star. With his spit curl and the band's matching plaid
dinner jackets and energetic stage behavior, many fans consider them to
be as revolutionary in their time as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were a decade later.
Following Haley's death, no fewer than six different groups have
existed under the Comets name, all claiming (with varying degrees of
authority) to be the official continuation of Haley's group. As of early
2008, three such groups were still performing in the United States and
internationally.
Contents
Early history and "Rock the Joint"
The band initially formed as Bill Haley and the Saddlemen c.
1949–1952, and performed mostly country and western songs, though
occasionally with a bluesy feel. During those years Haley was considered
one of the top cowboy yodelers in America. Many Saddlemen recordings
would not be released until the 1970s and 1980s, and highlights included
romantic ballads such as "Rose of My Heart" and western swing tunes such as "Yodel Your Blues Away". The original members of this group were Haley, pianist and accordion player Johnny Grande and steel guitarist Billy Williamson. Al Rex was the group's first bass player, followed by Al Rex and Marshall Lytle.
During the group's early years, it recorded under several other names,
including Johnny Clifton and His String Band, The Four Aces of Western
Swing, and Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos (although Browne, a female matinee idol of the time, did not actually appear on the record).
Haley began his rock and roll career with what is now recognized as a rockabilly style in a cover of "Rocket 88" recorded for the Philadelphia-based Holiday Records label in 1951. It sold well and was followed in 1952 by a cover of a 1940s rhythm and blues song called "Rock the Joint" (this time for Holiday's sister company, Essex Records).
Slap-back bass, one identifying characteristic of rockabilly, was used
on the Comets' recordings of "Rocket 88", "Rock the Joint", "Rock Around
the Clock", and "Shake, Rattle, and Roll".[2]
Prior to becoming the Comets, slapback was also used by bassist Al Rex,
although to a lesser extent, on "Yodel Your Blues Away".[3]
"Rock the Joint" and its immediate followups were released under the
increasingly incongruous Saddlemen name. It soon became apparent that a
new name was needed to fit the new musical style. A friend of Haley's,
making note of the common alternative pronunciation of the name Halley's Comet to rhyme with Bailey, suggested that Haley call his band the Comets. (This event is cited in the Haley biographies Sound and Glory by John Haley and John von Hoelle, and Bill Haley by John Swenson and in Still Rockin' Around The Clock, a memoir by Comets bass player, Marshall Lytle.)
The new name was adopted in the fall of 1952. Members of the group at
that time were Haley, Grande, Williamson and Lytle. Grande usually
played piano on record, but switched to accordion for live shows as it
was more portable than a piano and easier to deal with during musical
numbers that involved a lot of dancing around. Soon after renaming the
band, Haley hired his first drummer, Charlie Higler, though Higler was
soon replaced by Dick Boccelli (a.k.a. Dick Richards). During this time
(and indeed, as late as the fall of 1955), Haley did not have a
permanent lead guitar player, choosing to use session musicians on
record and either playing lead guitar himself or having Williamson play
steel solos.
National success and "Rock Around the Clock"
In 1953 Haley scored his first national success with an original song called "Crazy Man, Crazy",
a phrase Haley said he heard from his teenage audience. Haley later
claimed the recording sold a million copies, but this is considered an
exaggeration. "Crazy Man, Crazy" was the first rock and roll song to be televised nationally when it was used on the soundtrack for a 1953 television play starring James Dean.
Haley and His Comets then recorded "Rock Around the Clock",
Haley's biggest hit, and one of the most important records in rock and
roll history. Sales of "Rock Around the Clock" started slowly but
eventually sold an estimated 25 million copies (per the Guinness Book of World Records) and marked the arrival of a cultural shift.
"Shake, Rattle and Roll" followed, a somewhat bowdlerized cover version of the Big Joe Turner recording[4] of earlier in 1954. The record was one of Decca's best-selling records that year[5] and the seventh best selling record in November 1954.[6]
In March 1955, the group had four songs in Cash Box magazines top 50
songs: "Dim, Dim the Lights, (I Want Some Atmosphere)", "Birth of the
Boogie", "Mambo Rock", and "Shake, Rattle and Roll".[7]
Although Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" never achieved the same
level of historical importance as "Rock Around the Clock", it actually
predated it as the first major international rock and roll hit, although
it did not attain the Number 1 position in the American charts, but
became his first gold record. When Elvis Presley
recorded the song in 1956, he combined Haley's arrangement with
Turner's original lyrics but failed to score a substantial hit. Late in
1954, Haley also recorded another hit, "Dim, Dim The Lights", which was
one of the first R&B songs recorded by a white group to cross over
to the R&B charts. Johnnie Ray had reached No. 1 with "Cry" in 1952.
The (belated) success of "Rock Around the Clock" is attributed to its use in the soundtrack of the film Blackboard Jungle,[8]
which was released on March 19, 1955. The song, which was re-released
to coincide with the film, rose to the top of the American musical
charts that summer and stayed there for eight weeks, the first rock and
roll record to do so.
Ambrose's acrobatic saxophone playing, along with Lytle on the double
bass -literally on it, riding it like a pony, and holding it over his
head- were highlights of the band's live performances during this time.
Their music and their act were part of a tradition in jazz and rhythm and blues, but it all came like a thunderclap to most of their audience. In late 1954, Haley and His Comets appeared in a short subject entitled Round Up of Rhythm, performing three songs. This was the earliest known theatrical rock and roll film release.
In 1955, Lytle, Richards and Ambrose quit the Comets in a salary dispute and formed their own group, the Jodimars. Haley hired several new musicians to take their place: Rudy Pompilli on sax, Al Rex (a former member of the Saddlemen) on double bass, and Ralph Jones on drums; in addition, lead guitarist Franny Beecher, who had been a session musician for Haley since Danny Cedrone's
death in the fall of 1954, became a full-time Comet and Haley's first
performing lead guitarist (Cedrone had played the guitar solo on the
original recording of "Rock Around The Clock", and his death predated
the single's release). This version of the band became more popular than
the earlier manifestation, and appeared in several motion pictures over the next few years.
Other hits recorded by the band included "See You Later, Alligator"[8] in which Haley's frantic delivery contrasted with the Louisiana languor of the original by Bobby Charles,
"Don't Knock the Rock", "Rock-a-Beatin' Boogie", "Rudy's Rock" (the
first instrumental hit of the rock and roll era) and "Skinny Minnie".
Bill Haley and the Comets performed "Rock Around the Clock" on the Texaco Star Theater hosted by Milton Berle on May 31, 1955 on NBC
in an a cappella and lip-synched version. Berle predicted that the song
would go no. 1: "A group of entertainers who are going right to the
top." Berle also sang and danced to the song which was performed by the
entire cast of the show. This was one of the earliest nationally
televised performances by a rock and roll band and provided the new
musical genre called "rock and roll" a much wider audience.
Bill Haley and the Comets were the first rock and roll performers to
appear on the iconic American musical variety television program the Ed Sullivan Show
or Talk of the Town on Sunday, August 7, 1955 on CBS in a broadcast
from the Shakespeare Festival Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. They
performed a live version of "Rock Around the Clock" featuring Franny
Beecher on lead guitar and Dick Richards on drums. The group made their
second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, April 28, 1957
performing the songs "Rudy's Rock" and "Forty Cups of Coffee".
Bill Haley and the Comets appeared on American Bandstand hosted by Dick Clark on ABC
twice in 1957, on the prime time show October 28, 1957 and on the
regular daytime show on November 27, 1957. The band also appeared on
Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show, also known as The Dick Clark Show,
a primetime TV series from New York on March 22, 1958 during the first
season and on February 20, 1960, performing "Rock Around the Clock",
"Shake, Rattle, and Roll", and "Tamiami".
In 1956 the group appeared in two of the earliest full-length rock and roll movies with Alan Freed: Rock Around the Clock, and Don't Knock the Rock. The Platters were the co-stars in the first movie while Little Richard appeared in the second film.
Decline in popularity
The band's popularity in the United States began to wane in 1956–57 as sexier, wilder acts such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard began to dominate the record charts (although Haley's cover version of Little Richard's "Rip It Up" - which was
released in direct competition - actually outsold the original). After
"Skinny Minnie" hit the charts in 1958, Haley found it difficult to
score further successes in the United States, although a spin-off group
made up of Comets musicians dubbed The Kingsmen (no relation to the later group of "Louie, Louie" fame) did score a hit with an instrumental, "Weekend", that same year.
Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be popular,
touring the United Kingdom in February 1957, during which Haley and his
crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at Waterloo Station in London at an incident which the media dubbed the Second Battle of Waterloo.
The group also toured Australia in 1957, and in 1958 enjoyed a
successful (if riot-dominated) tour of the European mainland. Bill Haley
& His Comets were the first major American rock and roll act to
tour the world in this way. Elvis who was on duty in Germany visited
them backstage at some shows. During an off day in Berlin they performed
two songs in the Caterina Valente movie Hier Bin ich Hier Bleib Ich (Here I Am Here I Stay).
Back in the U.S., Haley attempted to start his own record label,
Clymax, and establish his own stable of performers, most notably
Philadelphia children's show hostess Sally Starr and the Matys Brothers.
Members of the Comets were commissioned to work as session musicians on
many of these recordings, many of which were written or co-written by
Haley and/or members of the Comets. The Clymax experiment only lasted
about a year. In 1959, Haley's relationship with Decca collapsed and
after a final set of instrumental-only recordings in the fall, Haley
announced he was leaving Decca for the new Warner Bros. Records label where two more albums were released to moderate success in 1960.
Mexico and the late 1960s
In 1961–1962, Bill Haley y sus Cometas (as the band was known in Hispanic America) signed with the Orfeón label of Mexico and scored an unexpected hit with "Twist Español", a Spanish-language recording based on the twist dance craze that was sweeping America at the time. Haley followed up with what was, for a time, the biggest selling single in Mexican history with "Florida Twist". Although Chubby Checker and Hank Ballard
were credited with starting the twist craze in America, in Mexico and
Latin America, Bill Haley and His Comets were proclaimed the Kings of
the Twist. Thanks to the success of "Twist Español" and "Florida Twist",
among others, the band had continued success in Mexico and Latin America over the next few years, selling many recordings of Spanish and Spanish-flavored material and simulated live performances (overdubbed audience over studio recordings) on the Orfeon label and its subsidiary, Dimsa. They hosted a television series entitled Orfeon a Go-Go and made cameo appearances
in several movies, lipsynching to some of their old hits. Haley, who
was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs in the language, but
the vast majority of the band's output during these years were
instrumental recordings, many utilizing local session musicians playing
trumpet. There was also some experimentation with Haley's style during
this time; one single for Orfeon was a folk ballad, "Jimmy Martinez",
which Haley recorded without the Comets.
In 1966, the Comets (without Bill Haley) cut an album for Orfeon as
session musicians for Big Joe Turner, who had always been an idol to
Haley; no joint performance of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was recorded,
however. In a 1974 interview with BBC Radio,
Haley said Turner's career was in a slump at this time, so he used his
then-considerable influence with Orfeon to get Turner a recording
session. The Comets' association with Orfeon/Dimsa ended later that
year.
By 1967, as related by Haley in an interview with radio host Red Robinson
that same year, the group was "a free agent" without any recording
contracts at all, although the band continued to perform regularly in
North America and Europe. During this year, Haley—without the
Comets—recorded a pair of demos in Phoenix, Arizona: a country-western song called "Jealous Heart" for which he was backed by a local mariachi
band (and similar in style to the earlier "Jimmy Martinez", and
late-60s-style rocker called "Rock on Baby" backed by a group called
Superfine Dandelion. Neither recording would be released for 30 years.
In 1968, Haley and the Comets recorded a single for the United Artists label, a version of Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis" but no long-term association with the label resulted. In order to revive his recording career, Haley turned to Europe.
Revival
By the late 1960s, Haley and the Comets were considered an oldies
act. The band's popularity never waned in Europe, and the group signed a
lucrative deal with Sonet Records
of Sweden in 1968 that resulted in a new version of "Rock Around the
Clock" hitting the European charts that year. The band would record a
mixture of live and studio albums for the label over the next decade.
In the United States in 1969, promoter Richard Nader launched a series of rock and roll revival concert tours featuring "oldies" acts of the 50s and 60s. One of the first of these shows, held at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden
in New York City, resulted in Haley receiving an eight-and-a-half
minute standing ovation following his performance, as Nader related in
his recorded introduction to Haley's live album Bill Haley's Scrapbook, which was recorded a few weeks later at New York's Bitter End club.
The band appeared in several concert films in the early 1970s, including The London Rock and Roll Show and Let the Good Times Roll.
After 1974, tax and management problems prevented Haley from performing
in the United States, so he performed in Europe almost exclusively,
though he also toured South America in 1975. The band was also kept busy
in the studio, recording numerous albums for Sonet and other labels in
the 1970s, several with a country music
flavor. In 1974, Haley's original Decca recording of "Rock Around the
Clock" hit the American sales charts once again thanks to its use in American Graffiti and Happy Days.
Late career
In February 1976, Haley's saxophone player and best friend, Rudy Pompilli, died of cancer
after a nearly 20-year career with the Comets. Haley continued to tour
for the next year with a succession of new sax players, but his
popularity was waning again and his 1976 performance in London was
critically lambasted by music media such as Melody Maker. That year, the group also recorded an album, R-O-C-K at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio
for Sonet Records. In early 1977, Haley announced his retirement from
performing and settled down at his home in Mexico. According to the John
Swenson biography of Haley, the musician was quoted as saying that he
and Pompilli had an agreement that if one died, the other would retire.
The Comets continued to tour on their own during this period.
In 1979, Haley was persuaded to return to performing with the offer
of a lucrative contract to tour Europe. An almost completely new group
of musicians, mostly British - including Pete Thomas - were assembled to perform as The Comets, and Haley appeared on many television shows as well as in the movie Blue Suede Shoes, filmed at one of his London concerts in March 1979. A few days later, a performance in Birmingham
was videotaped and aired on UK television; it was released on DVD in
2005. During the March tour, Haley recorded several tracks in London for
his next album with Sonet, completing the work that summer at Muscle
Shoals in Alabama; released later in the year, the resulting album Everyone Can Rock & Roll was the last release of new recordings by Bill Haley before his death.
In November 1979, Haley and the Comets performed for Queen Elizabeth II,
a moment Haley considered the proudest of his career. It was also the
last time he performed in Europe and the last time most fans saw him
perform "Rock Around the Clock".
In 1980, Bill Haley and His Comets toured South Africa but Haley's health was failing and it was reported that he had a brain tumor. The tour was critically lambasted, but surviving recordings of a performance in Johannesburg
show Haley in good spirits and good voice. Nonetheless, according to
the Haley News fan club newsletter and the Haley biography Sound and Glory, planned concerts such as a fall 1980 tour of Germany, and proposed recording sessions in New York and Memphis were cancelled—including a potential reunion with past members of the Comets—and Haley returned to his home in Harlingen, Texas where he died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on February 9, 1981.
In April 1981, Bill Haley & His Comets returned to the British
musical charts once again when MCA Records (inheritors of the Decca
catalog) released "Haley's Golden Medley", a hastily compiled edit of
the band's best known hits in the style of the then-popular "Stars on 45" format. The single reached No. 50 in the UK but was not released in the United States.
In 1987, Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
At that time, supporting bands were not also named to the hall. This
policy has since changed and efforts have been under way for several
years to have The Comets also named to the Hall. In 2012, a special
committee finally inducted the Comets into the hall. Bill Haley and His
Comets have also been inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame
and, in July 2005, the surviving members of the 1954–55 Comets (see
below) represented Haley when Bill Haley and His Comets were inducted
into Hollywood's Rockwalk,
a ceremony also attended by Haley's second wife and youngest daughter.
The Comets placed their handprints in cement; a space was left blank for
Haley.
The Comets
More than 100 musicians performed with Bill Haley & His Comets
between 1952 and Haley's death in 1981, many becoming fan favorites
along the way.[9] Several short-lived Comets reunions were attempted in the 1970s and 1980s, including one contingent (organized by Baltimore-based piano player Joey Welz who played piano for the Comets during the summer of 1965[10]) that appeared on The Tomorrow Show, and another run by an Elvis Presley
impersonator named Joey Rand (this group later lost a legal action over
the right to use the Comets name), but only one group was officially
sent out to perform by Haley himself, and his management/production
company, which were the official Comets who played with Haley throughout
the 1960s and 1970s and continued to perform as the Comets between gigs
and during Haley's retirement. This group consisted of Comets lead
guitarist "Nick Masters" (Mathias Nicholas Nastos), bassist Ray Cawley,
singer "Pudge" Parsons (Ray Parsons), and drummer Buddy Dee. This was
the same group who rerecorded "Rock Around the Clock" for the "Happy
Days" television series theme music.[10]
The Comets, featuring musicians who performed with Haley in
1954–1955, reunited in 1987 and are still touring the world as of 2007,
playing showrooms in the United States and Europe. They have also
recorded a half-dozen albums for small labels in Europe and the United
States. This version of the group has also been credited as Bill Haley's Original Comets, and in circumstances where the use of the Comets name is in dispute, A Tribute to Bill Haley and The Original Band.
The basic line-up of this group from 1987 to May 2006 consisted of
Marshall Lytle (bass), Joey Ambrose (sax), Johnny Grande (piano), Dick
Richards (drums) and Franny Beecher (guitar). British singer Jacko
Buddin augmented the group on vocals during most of their European
tours, with Lytle taking over on vocals for US/Canadian tours beginning
in 2000 and full-time in Europe in the mid-2000s. Since they connected
with Klaus Kettner's Rock It Concerts (Germany) in 1991 they have played
hundreds of shows all over Europe, dozens of television shows and in
March 2007 pre-opened the Bill-Haley-Museum in Munich, Germany.
Two additional groups claim the name Bill Haley's Comets and
have extensively toured in the United States since forming in the 1980s:
one originally Haley's 1965–68 drummer John "Bam-Bam" Lane, the other
run by Al Rappa who played bass for Haley off-and-on between late 1959
and early 1969 (the 1959 album "Strictly Instrumental" on Decca was Al
Rappa's first recording session with Bill Haley & His Comets. Bill
had used Al as a fill-in player on live gigs for several years prior to
that.). Both these musicians claim trademark
ownership of the Bill Haley's Comets name; this dates back to Lane and
Rappa (during a period when they worked together as one band) winning a
trademark infringement lawsuit against the aforementioned Joey Rand
group in 1989. Both Rappa and Lane's bands have, from time to time,
recruited other former Comets for their line-ups (for example, in 2005,
Rappa joined forces with Joey Welz), but for the most part the
bandleaders are the only regular members who have worked with Bill Haley
directly. Lane died in 2007 but his group continues to perform, led by
bandleader Lenny Longo, who has no direct Bill Haley connection. Al
Rappa incorporated numerous professional musicians from the Southern
Indiana area such as Warren Batts, Joe Esarey, Dave Matthews, John
Urbina and many others to make a full band. Al Rappa performed his
Upright Bass show before thousands in audiences all over the country.
The band members from Al Rappas "Comets" went on to form the LocoMotion
showband and continued touring the United States without Al Rappa.
LocoMotion is now no longer a band. Esarey went on to graduate from
Cedarville University and Luther Rice Theological Seminary. He has since
pastored churches and produced his own Saxophone instrumental albums.
In March and July 2005, the members of the 1954–55 group, now billed
as simply the Comets after decades of controversy over the use of the
name, made several high-profile concert appearances in New York City and
Los Angeles organized by Martin Lewis as part of celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of rock and roll, the release of Blackboard Jungle, the 50th anniversary of "Rock Around the Clock" hitting Number 1, and the 80th birthday of Bill Haley.[11][12] During a July 6, 2005 concert at the Viper Room in West Hollywood, the Comets were joined on stage for one song by Gina Haley,
the youngest daughter of Bill Haley; at a similar appearance in March
they were joined by Haley's eldest son, John W. Haley. The 1954-55
Comets were also joined on stage by Bill Haley Jr. during several
appearances in 2005 at Bubba Mac's in Sommers Point, New Jersey, and at a
2005 concert recognizing the tenure of Bill Haley and the Saddlemen at
the Twin Bars in Gloucester, New Jersey.
In 2006, The 1954–55 Comets spent much of the year in residence at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri.
Meanwhile, the John Lane edition of Bill Haley's Comets recorded a new
album in Tennessee in early 2006 which has yet to be released.
On June 2, 2006, Johnny Grande, keyboardist with the 1954–55 Comets
and an original founding member of the band, died after a short illness.
The following month, 85-year-old guitarist Franny Beecher
announced his retirement, though he was at one point announced as
participating in an early 2007 tour of Germany. The three remaining
original Comets (Lytle, Richards, and Ambrose) continue to perform in
Branson with new musicians taking over the keyboard and lead guitar
positions. During September 2006, PBS
in the United States aired a series of programs videotaped in Branson
during the spring of 2006; these shows include the last recorded
performances of the complete Original Comets line-up including Grande.
John "Bam-Bam" Lane died on February 18, 2007[13]
but his edition of Bill Haley's Comets is expected to continue touring,
with the 2006 recordings to be released in Lane's memory.
On October 27, 2007 ex Comets guitar player Bill Turner opened the
afore mentioned Bill-Haley-Museum in Munich, Germany. He will also join
the New Comets during their 'Remember Bill Haley Tour 2011' with Bill
Haley's daughter Gina Haley.[14]
Several bands patterning themselves after the Comets are also active in Europe, including Bill Haley's New Comets in Germany.[14]
In 2011, Bill Haley Jr. formed the band Bill Haley Jr. and the
Comets, and created a "Rock 'N' Roll History Show" to perform songs from
his father's Holiday, Essex and Decca catalogues and offers anecdotes
and little know facts about the songs and his father's life. In 2012,
the band did a small tour of the Eastern United States.[citation needed]
Discography
Main article: Bill Haley & His Comets discography
- 1956 - Rock 'n' Roll Stage Show (Decca 8345)
- 1957 - Rockin' the Oldies (Decca 8569)
- 1958 - Rockin' Around the World (Decca 8692)
- 1959 - Bill Haley's Chicks (Decca 8821)
- 1959 - Strictly Instrumental (Decca 8964)
- 1960 - Bill Haley and His Comets (Warner Bros. 1378)
- 1960 - Haley's Juke Box (Warner Bros. 1391)
- 1961 - Twist (Dimsa 8255)
- 1961 - Bikini Twist (Dimsa 8259)
- 1962 - Twistin' Knights at the Roundtable (live) (Roulette SR-25174)
- 1962 - Twist Vol. 2 (Dimsa 8275)
- 1962 - Twist en Mexico (Dimsa 8290)
- 1963 - Rock Around the Clock King (Guest Star 1454)
- 1963 - Madison (Orfeon 12339)
- 1963 - Carnaval de Ritmos Modernos (Orfeon 12340)
- 1964 - Surf Surf Surf (Orfeon 12354)
- 1966 - Whiskey a Go-Go (Orfeon 12478)
- 1966 - Bill Haley a Go-Go (Dimsa 8381)
- 1971 - Rock Around the Country (Sonet 623); issued in North America by GNP-Crescendo (LP 2097) and as Travelin' Band on Janus (JLS 3035)
- 1973 - Just Rock 'n' Roll Music (Sonet 645); issued in North America by GNP-Crescendo (LP 2077)
- 1979 - Everyone Can Rock and Roll (Sonet 808)
Grammy Hall of Fame
The following recording by Bill Haley and the Comets was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame,
which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings
that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical
significance."
| Bill Haley and the Comets: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards[15] | |||||
| Year Recorded | Title | Genre | Label | Year Inducted | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | "Rock Around the Clock" | Rock & Roll (single) | Decca Records | 1982 | |
Notes
- All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music By Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine. 2003. Backbeat Books. page 315. ISBN 0-87930-760-9
- Bill Haley: The Daddy of Rock and Roll. John Swenson. 1982. Stein and Day. pp. 36, 47, 51. ISBN 0-8128-2909-3
- Bill Haley: The Daddy of Rock and Roll. John Swenson. 1982. Stein and Day. p. 36. ISBN 0-8128-2909-3
- Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 4 - The Tribal Drum: The rise of rhythm and blues. [Part 2]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. Digital.library.unt.edu.
- Billboard, 15 January 1955, p. 38
- Billboard, 13 November 1954, p. 64
- "Cash Box Top Singles 3/05/55". Cashboxmagazine.com. 5 March 1955. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
- Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 5 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. [Part 1]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. Digital.library.unt.edu.
- "Bill Haley Extra Page 2". Rockabillyhall.com. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- "The Bill Haley Who's Who". Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
- "The Film That Helped Launch Rock". CBS News. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- "Rock ‘N’ Roll Turns 50 in July". Seniorjournal.com. 2005-06-29. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- ""EXTRA!" Page 1 / Bill Haley and the Comets". Rockabillyhall.com. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- "Bill Haley is back with Bill Haley's New Comets". Bill-haley.com. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- Grammy Hall of Fame Database.
Posting Komentar