Customer Reviews

Best of Bill Haley 1951-1954

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Before Bill Haley began rocking around the clock tonight, he released singles with his group the Saddlemen. So what to call this new brand of music? Western swing mixed with polka? A fusion of country-western and 40's R&B set to a steady beat? Country boogie? Call it what you will, but this collection consists of A and B-sides of his singles on Holiday and later Essex Records, which veers closely to his later chart-toppers.

Clearly, Haley saw this R&B style music as his fugure, given by his own cover of Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88", which is considered by some to be the first R&R song and not "Rock Around the Clock," and Jimmy Preston's #6 R&B hit, "Rock This Joint," both included here. The latter definitely predicts his later style, with some piercing steel guitar reflecting the country roots, but it was also the song Alan Freed played over and over and yelling "rock and roll, everybody!" on the King of the Moondogs show.

Songs like "Green Tree Boogie" would have rhythms repeated in their later material as well as stuff done by Little Richard but more raucously. The steel guitar and loudly pronounced bass enhances the beat. The brisk "Dance With A Dolly" sounds like early Louis Jordan material, especially with the piano boogie solo in the middle, with a kind of nursery rhyme-like beat.

One day, Bill Haley asked some kids how they liked his music. One responded, "crazy man, crazy," which Haley wrote down on a napkin. This standout song which reached #12 on the charts in 1953, was the first blip he made before he exploded with "Rock Around The Clock." With its "go go go everybody" shouts in the middle, accompanied by the Comets' trademark country guitar, how could this miss? I heard this song via a compilation LP my father bought back in the 50's. Another song that was on that compilation was "Farewell, So Long, Goodbye," with its rude-noise bari-sax note after each time the chorus was sung. Or did the Comets have some really strong chili before the recording session?

Chanting harmony choruses were prevalent in a cover of Faye Adams' R&B hit "I'll Be True" and "Live It Up" with its opening tribal drums and frat choruses.

Another observation is how nursery rhymes were recycled with early rock and roll arrangements and additional lyrics. Again, this seems to echo what Louis Jordan's nursery rhyme medley, "School Days (When We Were Kids)" earlier. Here, Haley gives the R&R treatment to "Pat-A-Cake" as in Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man, and "Ten Little Indians," which despite its as stance at being condescending to Native Americans today, does put on a thrilling beat. "Stop Beatin' Round The Mulberry Bush" also borrows from a nursery rhyme, and it was just before this song came out that Haley and company ditched the cowboy outfits, donned the suits and ties, and became the Comets in 1952.

"Fractured" was based on slang kids were using then, as in "this music fractures me," showing the Haley was attentive of the times and his audience, the pop market with its white teenagers. And his R&R cover of the 40's standard "Chattanooga Choo Choo" shows him reaching back to the big band days, with the female backing chorus reminding the era of the original.

There's no denying Haley brought out a new brand of music to white audiences, and helped changed the face of popular music,--and I really dig this stuff-- but what must be understood is that his fame came at the expense of many black artists unable to reach white audiences due to the recording industry.

Bill Haley usually gets his due for helping to kick off the rock & roll era with "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954, but as it happens, Haley had been cutting solid rock sides several years before that. Haley covered Jackie Brenston's epochal "Rocket '88" within a few months of its 1951 release with his Western swing outfit, Bill Haley & the Saddlemen, and after that it didn't take long for Haley and his bandmates to make with the boogie and add some strong proto-rockabilly material to their set. The result was a string of regional hits for the Essex label that eventually led to Haley's signing to Decca Records and the recording of the song that became both his greatest triumph and the millstone he could never escape. "The Best of Bill Haley and His Comets 1951-1954" is hardly the first album to skim the cream off Haley's pre-Decca hits (pick up "Rock the Joint" for a more complete picture of this era), but it's more concise and better sounding than most collections of Haley's Essex sides, and leaves his lukewarm hillbilly material by the wayside in favor of straight-ahead rock & roll (though Billy Williamson's blazing steel guitar solos point to the band's country roots). These recordings prove that Haley's showy style had fully evolved long before "Rock Around the Clock" made him an international star, and if anything this material makes for a more satisfying listen than the vast majority of Haley compilations on the market, with "Rock the Joint," "Real Rock Drive," and "Crazy Man, Crazy" standing alongside his very finest work. "The Best of Bill Haley and His Comets" is a well-considered tribute to the formative years of one of rock's more neglected pioneers, and it's plenty of fun to boot.

For many artists, the public's perception of their career begins with a watershed moment. For Haley, that moment was the 1954 recording of "Rock Around the Clock," magnified by the song's re-appearance in the 1955 film "Blackboard Jungle." But also like many artists, Haley's career - nor what he was really famous for - was born in that seemingly single moment of inspiration. This collection shows off the years before the public's light bulb switched on, as Haley and His Comets transitioned from a western swing band to one of the (if not "the") earliest of rock 'n' roll acts.

Throughout the 40s Haley had made his way as a western swing artist. But when he signed with Essex Records in the early 50s, he began to cross-pollinate his country influences with beat-oriented R&B. The seeds of 1954's "Rock Around the Clock" can be heard loud and clear across the sixteen tracks anthologized here. What's particularly fine about these sides is their transitional nature - they're not country or R&B, nor are they yet fully transformed into rock 'n' roll. They're a hybrid in the making with slap bass and fine stick/rim work on the drums, but also featuring pedal steel guitar. There are danceable backbeats, but they often swing towards a western two-step rather than the more freestyle rhythms heard on the race chart. The sax and guitar clearly begin to define rock 'n' roll conventions, borrowing pieces from R&B, country and blues and fusing them into something entirely new. Danny Cedrone's iconic 6-string solo from "Rock Around the Clock," for example, was lifted from his own performance on 1952's "Rock the Joint." Imagine what that sounded like on Alan Freed's Cleveland radio show at the time!

Haley was unfairly reduced to a footnote for many years, obscured by the large shadows of Berry, Presley and others. What these tracks show ever so clearly is that he was fusing country and R&B into rock 'n' roll before the other "founders" were on the scene. So too was he writing prototypical rock 'n' roll songs, leaning on teen slang for "Crazy, Man, Crazy" and delving into his own imagination for "Rockin' Chair on the Moon."

This is a most welcome release in celebration of Rock 'n' Roll's 50th anniversary!

I just wanted to add that this CD is almost identical to the 23 track, 1989 release by Roller Coaster Records # RCCD3001, Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock The Joint! - The Original Essex Recordings - 1951-1954. A ten page booklet with band history & photo's is also included.

The only songs missing from this Best Of CD are Tearstains On My Heart, Icy Heart, Jukebox Cannonball, Straight Jacket and a second version of Yes Indeed!

Some of these early songs really do swing. I can't add much more to what has already been said by the other posters who had great comments and observations.

"ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK" IS THE SONG BILL HALEY AND THE COMETS ARE BEST REMEMBERED FOR. IT WAS RELEASED IN 1955, AND IT IS USUALLY CITED AS BEING ONE OF THE FIRST ROCK AND ROCK AND ROLL SONGS BY WHITE ARTISTS. BUT ONE LISTEN TO THIS CD WILL TELL YOU THAT BILL HALEY WAS PLAYING ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC FOR YEARS BEFORE THAT SONG EVER CAME OUT. THESE RECORDINGS ARE FROM 1951-1954. IT BEGINS WITH THE SONG "ROCKET 88", WHICH IS REGARDED BY SOME "EXPERTS" AS BEING THE FIRST "TRUE" ROCK AND ROLL SONG (A MOST DECIDEDLY DEBATABLE POINT), AS IT WAS DONE BY JACKIE BRENTSON IN 1951(BUT IN ACTUALITY SHOULD HAVE BEEN CREDITED TO IKE TURNER, WHO PLAYS PIANO ON AND HELPED WRITE THE SONG). BILL HALEY'S VERSION, THE FIRST SONG ON THIS ALBUM CAME OUT THE VERY SAME YEAR! THIS IS A GREAT CD OF EARLY ROCKING MUSIC (WITH A DECIDEDLY WESTERN SWING FEEL TO IT), AND A TRUE PIECE OF FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE EARLY DAYS OF R&R. GREAT STUFF.

Until this came out, just about the only place you could find a CD collection of his early 1950s stuff with the Holiday and Essex labels was the Madacy compilation Celebration. This one from Varese Sarabande is better in every aspect - more tracks [17 to 10], better sound quality, and comprehensive liner notes and contents discography [Celebration has none at all].

In the opening paragraph of the 5 pages of notes Bill Dahl, using as his source the book "Bill Haley" by John Swenson, says "For many music historians rock and roll was officially born on April 12, 1954, when Bill Haley & His Comets cut their immortal "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock" for Decca Records. But Bill and his boys were rocking three years prior to that historic anthem, blending country with rhythm and blues to create a ground-breaking hybrid that changed the face of pop music forever."

I can attest to that, recalling listening to stations picked up from the U.S. from 1950 to 1953 using an aerial to hear, not only Bill Haley, but Fats Domino, Little Richard and, in 1954, Elvis Presley, long before they became household names.

Dahl's notes traces their origin from Bill's early days as The Rambling Yodeler to the first group, known as The Four Aces Of Western Swing, who cut their first record for the Cowboy label in 1948. Since there already was a well-known group called The Four Aces, they were forced to change their name, chooising The Saddlemen prior to cutting discs for Keystone and Atlantic, and then later Holiday and Essex, before deciding upon Bill Haley With Haley's Comets [later shortened to Bill Haley & His Comets].

There is a photo included of the original members along with one of Bill in one of his patented plaid jackets. As for the music, it's as infectious now as it was back then. Three of his Essex cuts charted before he moved on to Decca, and those were Crazy Man, Crazy which reached # 12 in August 1953 b/w What'cha Gonna Do (Essex 327)? In August he was back on the charts, only this time it was the flipside of Essex 327, Fractured, that caught the ears of listeners as it made it to # 24 b/o Pat-A-Cake. Then, in October, Live It Up reached # 25 on Essex 332 with Farewell, So Long, Goodbye as the B-Side. All were billed Bill Haley With Haley's Comets and are included here.

Many of the others were just as good, but in that era whites in their mid-teens were still hung up on the likes of Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, Kay Starr, Frankie Laine, et al, and so something this radical was going to take some getting used to. Not even (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock could generate much interest in that market upon its initial release in 1954 (a modest # 23 in June b/w Thirteen Women).

Black teens, on the other hand, had already been digging Fats Domino, Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters, Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, and The "5" Royales for several years, and slowly but surely this new sound would filter through to the white market, beginning with Haley's version (albeit watered down lyrically-speaking) of Turner's seminal Shake, Rattle & Roll in the late summer of 1954, which went all the way to # 7.

That was followed that December by Dim, Dim The Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere). Written for Haley by Beverly Ross, she would later go on to brief recording fame as one half of Ronald & Ruby on another of her compositions, Lollipop, before audiences realized she was white and Ronald [Coombs] was black [she would also write Judy's Turn to Cry for Lesley Gore and Candy Man for Roy Orbison].

In the meantime, when Rock Around The Clock was used over the opening credits of the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, it received new life in a spectacular way, signalling the arrival of a new musical era. The one that did not "fade away" as so many among the establishment had hoped.

An historically important compilation which should not be missed.

An amazing collection of Haley's pre rock around the clock recordings. It's a swingin' collection. BIll Haley is the true king of rock. the best songs on this cd are rocket 88 and rock the joint. this is the original rock. Bill began rock and roll by blending country and western and rhythm and blues together. it's a great cd for the hard core bill haley fan!