Bill Haley – Rock Around The Clock

Put your glad rags on and join me, hon
We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one

Bill Haley looked more like your dad than a rock star but his music helped kick rock and roll off.  His music was different than Elvis, Chuck,  Jerry Lee, Fats, and Buddy Holly. It had a country western swing and jive to it that the others didn’t have. I wanted to cover Mr. Haley today since we had a song yesterday about him. Rock Around The Clock is another B side that was remembered more than the flip side.

Haley started out as a country and western swing singer. He played with a lot of artists such as Hank Williams. Listening to the older pre-rock recordings…he was quite good. He then ran across early versions of rock and roll and combined it with western swing and it worked. He also incorporated some jazz elements in his act.

He toured from the mid-40s to the early 50s playing clubs all over America. He eventually released a song he wrote called Crazy, Man Crazy and it peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1953. He later switched to Decca and the producer wanted him to release a song called Thirteen Women. The song was about the atom bomb going off and he had 13 women around him. It was the B-Side that will be remembered. As usual…the producer didn’t see a hit on the B-Side…and that would be Rock Around The Clock. What helped the song was that it was included in the film The Blackboard Jungle. That also hurt Haley in the long run because it was connected to teenage delinquency.

The song was written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers. It peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in the UK in 1955-56. It recharted in Canada in 1966 and 1968 at #41 both years. It recharted again in 1974 and peaked at #39 on the Billboard 100, #26 in Canada, and #12 in the UK because of Happy Days.

Haley was blinded in his left eye as a child due to a failed operation. Haley later adopted his distinctive spit-curl hairstyle to distract attention from his blind eye. The hairstyle caught on as a 50s-style haircut. His popularity started to decline in America with the emergence of Elvis but he was huge in Europe when he toured there in 1957. They had many more top twenty hits in the UK than in America.

He enjoyed a career resurgence in the late 1960s with the rock and roll revival movement. “Rock Around the Clock” recharted again in 1974 at #34 on the Billboard 100 thanks to Happy Days. That is where I discovered the song and Haley.

He battled alcohol throughout the 60s and 70s. He passed away on February 9, 1981. Haley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

The A Side…13 Women

Rock Around The Clock

One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock
Five, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, rock
Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, rock
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon
We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight
When the clock strikes two, three and four
If the band slows down we’ll yell for more
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight
When the chimes ring five, six and seven
We’ll be right in seventh heaven
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight
When it’s eight, nine, ten, eleven too
I’ll be goin’ strong and so will you
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight
When the clock strikes twelve, we’ll cool off then
Start a rockin’ round the clock again
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

64 thoughts on “Bill Haley – Rock Around The Clock”

  1. Very nice to see a profile on a pioneer of Rock and Roll. You point out the contrast nicely with the fame and the all too inevitable decline when riding a wave. Like the man who introduced him in the movie clip, Haley did not ride off happily into the sunset.

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    1. No he didn’t…it was a struggle. I’m getting to that part of the book. What was sad to me is you can see his last shows on youtube…he tried to look the very same…same clothes and his band looked the same. As I told someone yesterday…it’s like Garden Party come true…again.

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      3. Sorry to bug you but I’ve not been able to corroborate Rock Around the Clock appearing on Cashbox in 1954, just wondering if the book clarifies that? Wiki had added that it did. I know it didn’t chart on anything at Billboard.

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      5. No they are right about the Billboard as it did not chart there at all in 1954, only in 55 after Blackboard Jungle and the whole Glen Ford story etc. But I only had access to the top 20 on Cashbox unless I look at a pdf of the whole magazine for every week of 1954 to see if the song hit the top 50 at some point. So if the book quotes a source I will at least know I was wrong about it not charting anywhere in 1954. Thanks Max.

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      8. Here it is: https://tropicalglen.com/Archives/50s_files/19540703.html. Entered the Cashbox chart at #36 on July 3. Didn’t last long. The next month “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” hit the chart and was still in the Top Ten when “Dim, Dim the Lights” entered the chart in November. I can only find the Top 20 on Billboard charts – no sign of “Rock Around the Clock” in ’54, but the other two were in the Top 20 at the same time toward the end of the year.

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      10. You’re welcome. I had a reputation at work as the person who was curious enough to look stuff up when others wondered about it. I guess that hasn’t left me. Being retired, I now have time to look up stuff like this.

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  3. To me, this song will always remain a timeless ’50s rock and roll classic. I also always find it reassuring to see an artist who perhaps didn’t exactly look like Elvis Presley but still became a star, based on the merits of his music. Another good example in this context is Buddy Holly who you could argue looked a bit like a geek, yet undoubtedly was one of the most influential artists and music pioneers!

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  5. I never thought of teenage delinquency as being a bad thing, as it is mostly kids being kids. I enjoyed Thirteen Women as i never heard it before. It is difficult for me not to think about Happy Days when I listen to Rock Around The Clock. It was fun to watch the dancing in that video.

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    1. Haley was afraid he would be blamed for turning kids bad. Of course he was around 30 when he hit big and from a different generation.
      I love those old videos of him.

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    2. If you like teenage delinquency, check out “High School Confidential”. My family saw it together at an outdoor screen on an Air National Guard base. I think it was to scare the airmen away from marijuana. Either my dad had no idea what he was taking us to, or it was to scare my teen older siblings.

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  6. I missed yesterday’s post somehow, on the song about him. That was a decent tune but sad story. I guess like you, I first heard this song on ‘Happy Days’…it was the opening theme for a year or two, wasn’t it, before the Pratt & McLain one? That show must have really helped renew interest in 50s music like his.

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    1. I agree… it helped kick off another revival of the 50s that was going on in the late sixties. Sha Na Na helped also I believe. I learned Rock around the Clock and Blueberry Hill from Happy Days.

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      1. Sha-na-na! A blast from the past on two levels! They had a TV show that somehow was shown here, did a lot of oldies covers. Had some guy with a big mouth as a gimmick- Yowser, Bowser?
        Happy Days and American Graffiti helped a mid-70s touring revival for the likes of Chuck Muddy and Bo, and that is no bad thing.

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      2. Bowser! I remember that how in the seventies! Yes the big mouth…I can see him now.
        It was a great thing that those artist and music were highlighted.

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  7. I remember hearing this via Happy Days when I was really young. Even for someone like me who is very into hard rock and heavy metal, it is clear to hear the beginnings of what would become rock through the song, very impressive stuff.

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    1. No…I wouldn’t try it on mine. Yea…he wasn’t exactly a prototypical rock star…he was more of a country western guy.
      Yea they did the song well.

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  12. Bill actually turned up on UK Top Of The Pops in 1974 when it was a hit again – my parents were there for The Blackboard Jungle in the 50’s as teens and I was 16 this time around. It wasnt quite as exciting as Glamrock, Bill knocking on a bit by then, and all, but it did at least mean the BBC felt that episode was worthy of keeping in the archives when they wiped everything up to 1976 or so, bar a few. You can tell it was an old geezer making the decision cos any episode which featured Sinatra, Crosby, Haley and the like didnt get scrubbed, oblivious to what really was of actual musical value (late career Crosby & Sinatra not so vital!)…

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      1. Video tape was hugely expensive and the BBC wasn’t a commercial station, they are still financed by an ever-decreasing licence fee (still a bargain compared to streaming services!) so it’s death by slow strangulation much to the approval of the Tory government. So, basically, they needed to re-use the video tapes, and we now depend on rich people with video recorders or school teachers (every school had a black and white video recorder for lessons from TV) to have squirreled away copies. Maurice Gibb was pretty good at recording Bee Gees and Lulu (his wife) stuff, so they are quite well represented, thankfully. Less big acts not so lucky….

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      2. Thanks for the explanation that makes sense….but they sure picked the wrong ones.
        Didn’t they also wipe some Doctor Who? I think I have most of them from that time period but I’m glad they largely got saved.

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      3. loads of 60’s Doctor Who are missing but they’ve been using the audio soundtracks and recreating animated versions which is better than nothing, plus fans spend loads on the blurays so BBC income increases (Ive bought quite a few) 🙂

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      4. Yea I got everything they released ripped to my movie server. They found some…probably by some people using VCRs in the early seventies. There are a few that yes…they use the audio and pictures.

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      5. I was in community radio in the 70s and we used the same audio tape over and over again, bulk erasing over a big electromagnet soon after broadcast. Money was the main issue, storage space another. Sometimes we’d use the same tape until it was full before erasing, sticking a scrap of paper in the tape for a place marker. to find the next show. I kept one tape of some of my shows. It was on 10.5″ reel-to-reel. I had no machine that could play it – most machines could only handle 7.25″ – so I eventually tossed it.

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      6. Yes I can see where money would be the driving factor….I never thought of the storage part but yes…you are right. After years and years it would add up. I can relate becasue I ripped all of my dvd and blurays to digital.

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  13. I like the fact that he was ‘old’ and had a dodgy eye (I just thought it was a lazy eye, not that he was actually blind!) – but was the first huge rock and roll star! Their music does sound markedly old-fashioned compared to Elvis, Chuck, Little Richard etc, and guitars don’t always feature that heavily. ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’ still has a kick though.

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    1. Yea he was really a country western singer and to his credit…he found some blues and R&B that he combined with this western swing and it worked! Not for long but it worked.
      Yea a doctor accidently cut his optic nerve in a child operation.

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  15. White boys jumping around and standing on a doghouse bass fiddle, doesn’t get crazy as that. I remember that song blaring from my cousins portable record player on summer days. She was five years older than me and into heavy rock n roll, the devils music was my aunts correct term. I guess it had the right effect on her because in 1957 she became a Beatnik and worked in the first coffee house in Fort Worth, later, moving to California to become a hippie flower girl. Strange how music shapes us when we are young and mush minded. I always dug that Dairy Queen curl on his forehead.

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    1. That curl did become popular for a while I read. Wow…it sure shaped her life…at least the beginning anyway. I hope it ended up well for her.

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