Rock Around the Clock [Original recording remastered]

Bill Haley | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 23, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B0001JXQG0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,361 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

HALEY BILL & HIS COMETS ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Rock Around The Clock" More Than a Great Album - It's an album of Rock n Roll History, January 18, 2006

By 

Edward Dixson "Dix" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rock Around the Clock (Audio CD)

Rock Around The Clock - the album, should be just as significant in music history as James Brown's Please Please Please album, a not only great sounding album but an album demonstrating the roots of Brown.

I do however have a special interest in both albums. My father co-wrote Dim Dim The Lights featured on the Rock Around The Clock album. My father knew Haley and Alan Freed so what I am about to say not only gives this album its deserved kudos, it also sets the record straight via primary source information about the history of some of the songs on the album.

Haley first recorded Rock Around The Clock in April of 1954. It didn't do that great, coming in at #33 and only staying on Billboard's Popular chart for one week.

Freed had met Haley in 1953. He showed great interest in Haley, even having him on his radio show out in Cleveland Ohio. What interested Freed about Haley, like Elvis interested Sam Phillips, was that he was looking for a white artist to take R&B to the mainstream and thought Haley could be that vehicle. Freed wasn't naive. He knew he had to do it in this racist world using a white music act. However, he was not willing to do it at the expense of legitimacy. Haley would first have to get the stamp of approval not by white music critics or a white music audience. Haley would have to get his stamp of approval by the Black music audience. This is why, other than a featured guest spot,you don't hear Haley songs until Dim Dim The Lights on Freed's radio shows.

Haley than scored a #7 pop hit doing a cover of Joe Turner's "Shake Rattle and Roll." He recorded his version somewhere in July of 54. Even that song was not played on a Freed show, although maybe Freed wanted to play it.

However, after Haley recorded Dim Dim The Lights in the month of November 54, Freed noticed that it was getting a lot of airplay on R&B stations. Freed started playing the song when Dim Dim The Lights became the first R&B song recorded by a white artist to not only get on the R&B charts but land in its Top Ten. Freed was on WINS New York by then playing an authentic R&B program. Dim Dim was also a Top Ten Pop hit on the Variety Charts, which was a more prestigious chart than Billboard or Cash Box back then, making Dim Dim The Lights the first record by a white act to be on two charts - top ten at that.

Everyone started playing and buying the three Haley songs that were lingering out there, which included left over Rock Around The Clock 45's still hanging around record stores from 54 and juke boxes. That's why one might see Rock Around The Clock getting significant juke box play around January of 55, which was clearly off the heels and success of Dim Dim The Lights.

This would explain why the producer of the movie "The Blackboard Jungle" starring Glen Ford heard his little preteen daughter playing Rock Around The Clock in January of 55 on her record player. He liked the response his daughter was giving the record so he decided to use it in the movie's soundtrack.

The success of the movie and its soundttrack told Decca Records to re-release Rock Around The Clock as a single in July of 55. That's why this album gets to us in 56.

While there is no question that Rock Around The Clock became the anthem of the R&B genre under the now agreed term Rock n' Roll with its first Rock n' Roll Icon, Bill Haley, rather than Rhythm and Blues and historically is considered the first international R&B/RR record, Dim Dim The Lights no doubt led the way and as Alan Freed said, "...is the grand daddy song of Rock n Roll."

There is room for little doubt that when Haley put an original thumb print on an R&B song he clearly performed a song in the Rhythm and Blues' spirit. That he didn't do with Shake Rattle and Roll. Maybe because he leaned away from the genre due to a command R&B performance by Joe Turner. But when he recorded Rock Around The Clock it was original and in the true R&B vain. It just had to wait for a stamp of approval. That came after he decided to record Dim Dim The Lights. My father told me that Haley did follow his demo that was given to him.

So when listening to this great album you will see Haley at his finest R&B performance level with most of the songs. Pay close attention to Thirteen Women. It has a Cab Calloway Band feeling to hit.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's on it, June 28, 2005

By 

Drogil (California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rock Around the Clock (Audio CD)

1. Rock Around the Clock
2. Shake, Rattle & Roll
3. A.B.C. Boogie
4. Thirteen Women
5. Razzle Dazzle
6. Two Hound Dogs
7. Dim, Dim the Lights
8. Happy Baby
9. Birth of the Boogie
10. Mambo Rock
11. Burn that Candle
12. Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie

Bonus Tracks:
13. R-O-C-K
14. The Saints Rock'n'Roll
15. See You Later, Alligator

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" - A Stunning Reissue For One Of ROCK 'n' ROLL's First Superstars And A Must Buy For Fans!, November 25, 2007

By 

Mark Barry, Reckless Records, London (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Rock Around the Clock (Audio CD)

This 2004 Universal CD reissue gives us all 12-tracks of the original US Mono album on Decca BL 8225 released just a week before the Christmas festivities of 1955. It's remastered to gorgeous sound quality from the 1st generation master tapes by Erick Labson of Universal and its bonus tracks are 3-sides of two singles in and around the release of the LP. It's a bit of an omission leaving out "The Mail Boy (On Main Street, USA)", the B-side to "See You Later, Alligator", which would have given us 16 tracks instead of 15 thereby allowing the listener to sequence no less than 8 of his Decca singles (A&B) as follows:

1. (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock/Thirteen Women (And Only One Man In Town) (1954, Decca 29124)
2. Shake, Rattle & Roll/ABC Boogie (1954, Decca 29204)
3. Dim, Dim The Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)/Happy Baby (1954, Decca 29317)
4. Mambo Rock/Birth Of The Boogie (1955, Decca 29418)
5. Razzle Dazzle/Two Hound Dogs (1955, Decca 29552)
6. Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie/Burn That Candle (1955, Decca 29713)
7. See You Later, Alligator/The Paper Boy (on Main Street, USA) (1956, Decca 29791)
8. R-O-C-K/The Saints Rock 'N' Roll (1956, Decca 29870)

But as you can see, the fifteen songs that are provided are that rarity - all killer and no filler - every last one of them released on 45 because they were ace.

Back to the album. Right from the off, the joy of the band is audible in every song and you can 'feel' why people went nuts for "rock 'n' roll". You can just imagine the new 'teenagers' of the USA - and everywhere else for that matter - sitting down in their local movie theatre, glued to the opening credits of "Blackboard Jungle", when Bill Haley's irresistible and infectious "Rock Around The Clock" comes out of the speakers and literally blew away the cobwebs of a hurting decade after the Second World War. It must have seemed like a cultural atom bomb - and best of all - scared the living crap out of their parents! A sense of sly fun pervades the whole record.

So why then is Haley seen by some as 'Uncle Bill'? Haley was 30 when the album was released, and yet somehow he seemed older - and some felt he was a pretender. Given his good looks, his voice and his sheer animal magnetism, it`s easy to see why Elvis would be adopted as the true "King of Rock'n'Roll" by the teens just a few months later. Elvis was cool; Haley was your Dad! And although Elvis ripped the entire fabric of the known Universe apart in 1956, this extraordinary album is where it all really started for Rock 'n' Roll and Bill Haley should be loved for that. Haley laid the groundwork and Elvis, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers - they all followed in his footsteps - and all prospered because of him.

You can't help but think that this album and Haley himself are forgotten - and they shouldn't be. A fantastic listen - an important and timely reissue - and surely one of the great debut albums of all time. Start your journey to the dark side here children and swear to your parents, you'll only look at Bill from the waist up!

PS: A few words on the "ROCK 'N' ROLL 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION" Series in general:
It should also be noted that this issue is part of the above named series issued in 2004 by Universal. This secondary series title is displayed vertically on the side inlay beneath the see-through tray, but unfortunately, if you try to search the Amazon database for ANY titles in the series, it doesn't recognize the 'name' at all. For those interested in a visual, I've placed a full list of all seven titles in Listmania called "Rock 'N' Roll 50th Anniversary Edition Series". Other goodies in the series include "Buddy Holly" ('58) by Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry's "After School Session" ('58) and "St. Louis To Liverpool" ('64), Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger" ('60), and the "Rock, Rock, Rock!" soundtrack from 1956 featuring Chuck Berry, The Moonglows and The Flamingos. I can't recommend these titles enough - each album remastered to beautiful sound quality, colour artwork lovingly restored and each bolstered up with 3 or 4 relevant single releases from the time (some previously unreleased). Fans of Haley, Holly, The Crickets, Berry, Diddley and Rock'n'Roll in general should quickly acquire all of these exemplary CDs. They make for the best basis of a collection in a minefield of lesser compilations. Enjoy!