Only the Good Die Young-Part VII

Bill Haley

How would you like to have an asteroid named in your honor? Not a star, like the ones you can buy for your loved ones, but a real asteroid? That's exactly how the International Astronomical Union marked the 25th anniversary of Bill Hailey's death.

William John Clifton Haley was not always such a notable person. He was born on July 6, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan. During the depression, his father moved the family from the severely depressed Detroit area, to Boothwyn, Pennsylvania.

Bill grew up in a musical family. His father played the banjo and his mother was a classically-trained pianist. The notes accompanying the 1956 album Rock Around the Clock, described the beginnings of his career: "Bill got his first professional job at the age of 13, playing and entertaining at an auction for the fee of $1 a night. Very soon after this he formed a group of equally enthusiastic youngsters and managed to get quite a few local bookings for his band. When Bill Haley was fifteen [c.1940] he left home with his guitar and very little else and set out on the hard road to fame and fortune. The next few years, continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner, were hard and poverty stricken, but cramful of useful experience. Apart from learning how to exist on one meal a day and other artistic exercises, he worked at an open-air park show, sang and yodelled with any band that would have him and worked with a traveling medicine show. Eventually he got a job with a popular group known as the Down Homers while they were in Hartford, Connecticut. Soon after this he decided, as all successful people must decide at some time or another, to be his own boss again - and he has been that ever since. For six years Bill Haley was a musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, and led his own band all through this period. It was then known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen, indicating their definite leaning toward the tough Western style. They continued playing in clubs as well as over the radio around Philadelphia, and in 1951 made their first recordings."


In 1952, The Saddlemen were renamed Bill Haley with Haley's Comets. Of course, the name was inspired by Halley's Comet, which is commonly mispronounced. In 1953, their recording of Crazy Man Crazy became the first rock 'n roll song to hit the charts. Soon after, the band became Bill Haley & His Comets.

In 1953, the song Rock Around the Clock was written for Haley. He finally recorded it on April 12, 1954. It stayed on the charts only one week. However, Haley had a major hit with Shake, Rattle and Roll, which eventually sold a million copies.

Haley was an important force in white audiences accepting rock 'n roll, which was considered an underground genre. As fate would have it, Rock Around the Clock was used as the opening music for Glenn Ford's 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle. It hit the top of the charts and stayed there for eight weeks, beginning the rock 'n roll era. The song earned Haley the title, "Father of Rock and Roll".
Haley went on to have hits through the '50s, including See You Later, Alligator. His fame soon faded in America, when Elvis hit the charts. However, his fame continued in Latin America, Mexico and Europe throughout the '60s.

Haley struggled with alcoholism into the '70s. In the fall of 1980, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When the tumor worsened, he retired from show business and died at his home in Harlingen, Texas on February 9, 1981. He was 55 years old.

Watch Bill Haley perform Rock Around the Clock in 1956.