A Magical Connection to the Past

Music Can Be a Time Machine

Photo: Author’s collection. Courtesy of Decca records

In 1955, Blackboard Jungle was released. The opening credits featured a song that exploded worldwide and sparked the Rock ’n’ Roll revolution. The tune had been released a year earlier on Decca Records but had little impact. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the recording of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and The Comets!

The first concert I ever attended was in 1978 at Elliott Hall of Music in West Lafayette, Indiana. Waylon Jennings was the headliner, and the opening act was The Crickets. I had just seen The Buddy Holly Story and was familiar with those songs. I was nine years old. It blew my little mind to see those guys in person. Seeing the movie and learning of Buddy Holly’s tragic end felt so final. Watching The Crickets perform those songs was like a cosmic link to the past. When Waylon came out, The Crickets were his backup band. It showed me they weren’t just an oldies act as they were playing current country hits with the outlaw.

Gene Vincent died in 1971, but we could see his Blue Caps perform into the nineties. Again, this was a way to connect to the music of an artist who was no longer with us.

Bill Haley died in 1981, but his band, The Comets, continued with various lineups until the 2000s. Between 1952 and 1981, over 100 different Comets played behind Bill Haley. Seeing a batch of “original” Comets play in Branson, Missouri, at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Theater did the same thing, helping us relive our youth as they played the classic songs and told the same old jokes. As an upright bass player, I was thrilled to meet Marshall Lytle and get his autograph.

Bill Haley certainly wasn’t the first to sing rock’ n’ roll, but he was one of the first white people to bring attention to the boogie-woogie hybrid, which mixed country and western with rhythm and blues. Haley and his band found their groove performing music with a driving beat. They realized the power coming through it was similar to what Gospel music provided. The dance floors filled as the people responded to the spirit of this new, exciting music. “Rocket 88” was a big hit in 1951, and “Crazy Man Crazy” hit the charts in 1953.

“(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was written by Max Freedman in 1952 and offered to publisher James Myers, who agreed to publish the song for a share of the writer’s credit. It was presented to Bill Haley, who liked the song but could not record it because Dave Miller, the founder of Essex Records, had a feud with Myers.

Night after night, the band saw the reaction of the crowds as they performed the song. On March 20, 1954, Sonny Dae and His Knights first recorded the song. It enjoyed modest local success around the Philadelphia area but failed to appear on the national charts.

On April 1, 1954, Myers and Haley met with Milt Gabler (Uncle of comedian/actor Billy Crystal) in New York City to hammer out a deal that would ensure Decca Records would release four records a year, sending copies to two thousand disc jockeys backed up with full-page ads in Billboard and Cashbox. In return, Haley was given $5,000 as an advance on royalties. Studio time was booked at Pythian Temple for April 12, four days after Haley’s contract with Essex expired. Haley returned home to Chester, Pennsylvania, to prepare for the session with The Comets. They reworked the arrangement of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.”

Sax player Joey D’Ambrosia remembered, “We worked on the arrangement of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ at Bill’s home. All of The Comets were there, plus Danny Cedrone, who would be our lead guitarist. Danny was an accomplished musician, and we all looked to him for advice.

First, we all listened to Sonny Dae’s recording. Then, we decided the record would have more ‘bounce’ if we added staccato riffs throughout the song. The voicing on the riffs was three parts — sax, lead guitar, and steel. Danny, Billy, and I worked it out on the spot, and it sounded great. Marshall suggested that Danny use as his guitar solo the terrific solo from ‘Rock The Joint’. The second break was supposed to be a sax solo, but the song was building to a point where I thought we’d get more excitement out of it by doing something the whole band could join in on.”

Decca Records considered the Pythian Temple to be their “Studio A.” The high ceiling and walnut-paneled walls created a natural reverberation. Decca had recently added a new recording console to capture in stereo. The session was booked for 11 a.m. Studio drummer Billy Gussak arrived to meet Gabler and Myers, but there was no sign of Haley or any of the other Comets.

Expensive minutes continued to roll by. Calls were placed to Haley’s home and his manager, James Ferguson, but there was no answer. Over an hour passed before a phone call came to the studio. The band had become stranded on a sand bar in the middle of the Delaware River. The Chester-Bridgeport ferry had run aground during low tide.

With the help of a tug boat, the ferry was finally pulled loose from the muddy impasse. They finally reached land, and Haley was able to call Gabler to tell him he would still be another two hours. Gabler wanted to cancel the session, but Haley lobbied to keep it going. The band drove as fast as possible and loaded in shortly after 1:00.

Most of the session was spent recording “Thirteen Women,” which was destined to be the A-side. The band learned the song and rehearsed it for an hour and a half. Six takes were recorded before Gabler was happy with it. Haley wasn’t crazy about the song but wanted to make Gabler and his new record label happy.

It was now after 4:00. The engineers reminded Myers they would be leaving at 5:00.

At just before 4:30, the band kicked into the B-side. It was in that next half hour when lightning struck. The Comets and Haley went through a take of the song to be told by the engineers that the instruments had completely overpowered the vocals. Gabler told them to cut the instrument microphones off and only use the single vocal mic to capture all the elements.

The second take was captured, and the engineers were done for the day. The band wasn’t even allowed to listen back to the take. Haley and the band went home wondering if the songs would be good enough to be released. The song that would change all of their lives was on the tape, but Gabler couldn’t listen to it until the following morning.

Sure enough, the first take had Haley’s vocals barely audible, while the second take was all voice. Gabler combined the two takes by overdubbing onto another tape. Luckily, the two performances were identical, and they synched up perfectly. This produced the recording that would go on to change the lives of all involved.

The single was released on May 20, 1954. “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” reached #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 but only stayed on the charts for one week. “Thirteen Women” failed to make an appearance.

Unfortunately, Cedrone was not able to see the profound effect his guitar solo would have on future generations of guitar players, as he fell down a flight of stairs and died from a broken neck less than a month after the record was released. The song would rise again just under a year later when it was chosen by the producers of a movie adaptation of Evan Hunter’s novel Blackboard Jungle.

One of the movie’s stars, Glenn Ford, brought in a couple of his son’s records, and “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was chosen as the film’s theme. Decca re-released the single, which shot to number one, remaining there for eight weeks.

Haley re-recorded the song many times throughout his career, and over 200 other artists cut it. None of them captured the magic achieved on the original take, which became a teenage anthem. The song returned to the top 40 in 1974 when it was featured in the movie American Grafitti. A re-recorded version by Haley was used as the theme to the American situation comedy Happy Days.

The single sold an estimated 25 million copies worldwide. It is often publicized as being played somewhere in the world every minute of the day. The Comets played the song in every show they ever did. I never had the chance to see Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, or Bill Haley, but I saw The Crickets, The Blue Caps, and The Comets, and they rocked.

By day, I work at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Buy me a coffee.