We’re gonna tear down the mailbox, rip up the floor
Smash out the windows and knock down the door
Bill Haley heard this song played on an R&B station and wanted to try it. It was different from the country he played. He started this off in a nightclub and people went crazy. He described it as “Cowboy Jive” and everyone rose to their feet…he knew he was on to something here. The song is credited to Doc Bagby, Don Keene, and Harry Crafton.
Bill had a radio show also during this point. The man that followed him on air was a disc jockey named Jim Reeves (not the singer Jim Reeves) and he played R&B. Haley had heard Jimmy Preston’s version of Rock This Joint on Reeves’s show. Haley had been wanting to incorporate countryfied rocking boogies in the repertoire of his band, The Saddlemen, this song seemed to him to be the perfect way to take that concept further.
The one thing I noticed about Haley’s version is guitar player Danny Cedrone’s solo… it was recycled for Rock Around The Clock…note for note. Later on…Bill Haley and his Comets would re-record this song as well.
It was released by Essex Records in 1952 but didn’t get into the national charts. Preston’s version was released in 1949 and is known as one of the first rock and roll records. In 1957 this version was rereleased in the UK and peaked at #20. That same year the Comets would rerecord it and release it but it didn’t chart.
It’s a cool early rock and roll song. There have been 16 different versions of it. Billy Swan and Reverend Horton Heat another to play it.
Rock This Joint
We’re gonna tear down the mailbox, rip up the floor
Smash out the windows and knock down the door
We’re gonna rock, rock this joint
We’re gonna rock, rock this joint
We’re gonna rock, rock this joint
We’re gonna rock this joint tonight
Well, six times six is thirty six
I ain’t gonna hit for six more licks
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock this joint tonight
Do the sugar foor rag, side by side
Flying low and flying wide
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock this joint tonight
Do an ol’ Paul Jones and a Virginia Reel
Just let your feet know how you feel
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock this joint tonight
Well six times six is thirty six
I ain’t gonna hit but six more licks
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock
Rock this joint
We’re gonna rock this joint tonight
…
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
Great Rock and Roll roots song Max! Never picked up on the guitar piece but now that you pointed it out don’t know how I missed it.
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I caught myself…I thought…wait am I listening to Rock Around The Clock? In the middle anyway.
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No I’ve listened to the original many times and Haley’s cover as well, don’t know why I never clued in!
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Danny Cedrone played that solo on both songs…it’s tragic though…he fell down a flight of stairs and died right after Rock Around the Clock.
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Awful, had no idea.
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You can certainly hear where ‘Rock Around the Clock’ came from! By the time the Comets re-recorded it they’re almost identical!
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That solo in there is the same one they just transferred over.
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Cool song with a great history, thanks for digging this up, Max.
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That book about him is fantastic…it’s a guy I was never really interested in but read it anyway…it was worth it.
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Bill Haley tamed the lyrics. It was sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll in the Jimmy Preston version.
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Yea he turned it from that to violence…which worked.
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I never knew much about Bill Haley besides the obvious Comets hit, interesting that he was more a country performer once. Sounds like a song the Stray Cats might have heard and internalized to me.
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Man…I knew nothing before that book…I never had a lot of interest in him but I have to admit…interesting guy and I like his music more and more. I do appreciate him much more.
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To my untrained ear Jimmy Preston’s version makes Bill Haley’s version sound like a nursey rhyme!
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It was more down and dirty…no doubt!
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Jimmy Preston has a Fats Domino tone to his voice. Love the horns in it, really makes it jump. Haley has an interesting substitution of horns for an accordian (which I’m not sure I hear in there or if it is the guitar?) Preston’s version beats Haley’s white bread attempt imo.
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An accordian and Steel Guitar. Yea he had to clean it up for the audience at the time to get it accepted…but yea I like Preston’s version.
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Yep Preston’s was low down and gritty, but it was different times back then, as we’ve said before. All that going to church on Sundays, singing ‘The Old Rugged cross,’ listening to the Reverend, the vicar the Elders or Brother Brimstone beseeching the young ‘uns of the early Fifties to not listen to that there Devils music.
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I haven’t heard either version of this until now but I have heard Reverend Horton Heat’s version. That Jimmy Preston version is pretty wild, I can see why Bill had to clean up his take on it.
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I was going to add that version to this…wish I would have…but yea he cleaned it up a bit.
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They all sound good to me. Amazing when you trace the start of rock n roll music how far back it goes.
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I only knew Bill Haley’s “Rock the Joint” with the Comets. Frankly, I wasn’t aware of The Saddlemen. In any case, all three versions of the song are cool. And, yes, the guitar solo in the Saddlemen rendition is identical to “Rock Around the Clock” – well, at least they changed the solo in the Comets’ take of “Rock the Joint”! 🙂
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Yes! That was probably because the guitar player that came up with it…died by falling down some stairs…just terrible. One of the last recording sessions he did…I think was Rock Around The Clock.
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Oh, jeez, I didn’t know that story either!
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Back to the Roots this post. I hope these cats all got paid. I always worry about that stuff.
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Probably didn’t back then…
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Crazy man, crazy!
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Great response! And…that one is coming in a few weeks.
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