Friday 10 July 2020


This week 65 years ago "Rock Around the Clock" became the very first rock 'n' roll recording to top the Billboard Pop charts.  
The 45 single release had reached No.17 on the UK Chart the previous January, some 4 months before it even entered the US pop charts. 
It would re-enter the UK chart in November 1955, this time making the No.1 spot. The picture here is of an EP from 1957 (another of my parent's purchases) and the sleeve notes make for some entertaining reading, that I have to share. Trust me this is the exact wording: 
"This isn't quite rhythm and blues, not quite hill-billy, not quite Tin Pan Alley, not quite anything for which there is a standard definition. It's a kind of shaking, rattling and rolling music that shakes a lot of people, rattles others and rolls along all the time. Whatever it is, it's happy and a guaranteed party livener, and it's rhythmical and danceable. Most of the things we require of popular music seem to lie somewhere within these qualifications."
But here's the thing most people didn't think it wouldn't last ! Even those making and playing rock 'n' roll music at the time. 
The video is taken from the 1956 film "Rock Around the Clock". Bill Haley and His Comets in full swing and featuring dancers Lisa Gaye and Earl Barton (Lisa and Jimmy Johns in the movie). 
Come on everybody, we're gonna rock around ...

A pretty short track. So here's another (also on the EP). We've had counting, now this offers some assistance in spelling. Track called R.O.C.K. !!! > www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssQndYysTH0
Check out Bill Haley looking even more like Buzz Lightyear 😆 


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