Review - Bill Haley: Rock Around The Clock (1955)

Tracks: 1) (Weʼre Gonna) 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-Beatinʼ Boogie.

REVIEW

No matter how you approach the matter, there can be no denying that Bill Haleyʼs first bunch of rockʼnʼroll singles was genuinely groundbreaking for its time — so groundbreaking, in fact, that, once the rockʼnʼroll bug had properly caught on, people probably began to suspect that it may have been nothing but groundbreaking. Next to Chuck and Elvis, not to mention the British Invasion, Bill Haley very quickly began sounding like a comparatively timid voice from the past, barely daring to hold one hand out into the future — meaning that ʽRock Around The Clockʼ found itself more often heard at the beginning of every single documentary on the history of rockʼnʼroll rather than on somebodyʼs actual playlist. When was the last time you heard a John Lennon or a Keith Richards extolling the virtues of Bill Haley and the Comets? Like never, right? So it just might be high time to re-evaluate this material in the same way that culture buffs re-evaluate «conservative» artists of the era such as Douglas Sirk, or any other Fiftiesʼ memorabilia, long thought of simply as packages of nostalgia for our grand-grand-parents, when, in reality, they offer so much more for the modern consumer... or do they?

Technically speaking, Rock Around The Clock — the album — is an early Decca compilation that collects six consecutive A- and B-sides for Bill and his Comets, beginning with ʽRock Around The Clockʼ — the song — recorded on April 12, 1954, and all the way to ʽRock A-Beatinʼ Boogieʼ, recorded September 22, 1955. It might be worth noting that, although chronologically ʽRock Around The Clockʼ was indeed the first single included in this package, it did not become a big hit until someone got the bright idea to include it in the soundtrack to Richard Brooksʼ classic Black­board Jungle. Actually, Haleyʼs first major «rock and roll era» hit was the lyrically sanitized ver­sion of Big Joe Turnerʼs ʽShake, Rattle & Rollʼ — appropriately, an even earlier Decca compilation placed huger em­phasis on that particular song, naming the record after it; however, there is no point in allocating a separate review to Shake, Rattle & Roll since it is merely a mini-LP with but eight songs on it, and all of its material would eventually be incor­porated into Rock Around The Clock anyway, after ʽRock Around The Clockʼ (the song) turned out to be so much more impactful.

So whatʼs the real deal about these particular six 45ʼs? Doubtlessly, this is the finest «small» set of Bill Haley & The Comets in existence — the birth of a new type of music, and a 100%-motivated band which seems only too happy to serve as the midwife. Yet it is also undeniable that, compared to the general rockʼnʼroll sound of 1956, it comes across as way too «clean» and «sanitized». The 30-year old (already not be trusted!) Bill Haley, with his background in country music, was, first and foremost, a pro­fessional entertainer, quite interested in having fun and gaining fame and fortune, but hardly interested in coming across as an «aggressive», «rebellious» icon for American youth. Come to think about it, donʼt all those wild stories about teen riots across the States and the UK during the initial run of Rock Around The Clock (the second, not the first movie to feature the song) seem so hard to believe nowadays — considering the utterly peaceful and friendly message of the tune? How did it all come to this? Surely, when The Comets recorded the song, they were simply thinking of doing their own take on some good old jump blues, albeit in just a slightly rowdier and speedier way than this stuff used to be played by the likes of Wynonie Harris and Big Joe Turner (and even that can be debatable). The last thing on their mind must have been to awake the sleeping dragon in the Ame­rican (let alone worldwide) teenager.

Not that the band felt too shocked or terrified when they did realize what they had unleashed — because no sooner had ʽShake, Rattle & Rollʼ and ʽRock Around The Clockʼ hit the big time than Haleyʼs country-wes­tern schtick of the past was all but forgotten. Well, itʼs not as if it does not leave any traces — but the album is all about stepping up and taking it to the next level: 12 tracks of non-stop boogie beats, with energetic danceable grooves all the way through and not even a single itty bitty ballad to let us catch our breath in between. In terms of loudness, cleanness, and discipline it is certainly «softer» than whatever followed, and some of it may seem «dumber» than one would expect from a bunch of true classics (for instance, Al Russelʼs ʽABC Boogieʼ comes to mind as a really tepid and unconvincing projection of rockʼnʼroll values onto the subject of school education, particularly next to something like Chuck Berryʼs ʽRing Ring Goes The Bellʼ), but if it is primarily F-U-N youʼre after, rather than a commitment to revolutionary ideals, The Comets come across as serious experts in the matter, even if it is totally unclear where all that expertise came from in the first place.

Of course, we might as well mention the technical aspects of these guysʼ musical approach. The efficiency of basic rockʼnʼroll depends, tooth and claw, upon the individual prowess of the players, and The Comets had one of the hottest rhythm sections around (simple double-bass lines and drum fills, but each note and each hit is delivered with the motivation of a bulldozer), and a great lead guitarist in the newly-arrived Franny Beecher, who had formerly made a name for himself in the Benny Goodman Orchestra; for a particularly awesome example, check out his fast, lilting, arch-precise, melodic-as-heck solo on ʼHappy Babyʼ. (It is also important to note that Beecher had replaced the prematurely deceased Danny Cedrone, who was no quack himself, responsible for the slightly whacky, wobbly soloing on ʽRock Around The Clockʼ). And even if Bill himself could never, by a long stretch, be called a «great» vocalist, his decidedly non-rockʼnʼrollish vocals not only seem perfectly suited for The Cometsʼ «inoffensive» sound, they can also be a nice change from the «rougher» performers — after all, nobody said that true rockʼnʼroll always has to exude burly masculinity, and in a way, it is even more of a challenge to combine genuine rockʼnʼroll excitement and energy with a touch of gentlemanly restraint, which somehow Bill and the boys were able to achieve on their best cuts.

That said, burly masculinity is still implicitly present all over the place, and from time to time, you might come across a relatively more «daring» number — for instance, not only does ʽThirteen Womenʼ covertly convey every manʼs wish to get it on with several lovely ladies at once, but it also hints at the H-bomb as one possible way to get that wish accomplished, all of this fantasy being set to an ominous, if not exactly apocalyptic, combination of sax riff and lead guitar siren. Ironically, the song used to be the A-side on the single where ʽRock Around The Clockʼ was the B-side — how coincidental is it, then, that the single in question was produced by Milt Gabler, the same man who had, fifteen years earlier, taken on the risk of producing Billie Holidayʼs ʽStrange Fruitʼ?

There are also tunes here that feature surprisingly self-analytical lyrics: ʽBirth Of The Boogieʼ, for instance, twenty years before AC/DCʼs ʽLet There Be Rockʼ tries to come up with a mythological origin for the «boogie lick», acknowledging its African roots in a slightly Brʼer Rabbit-ish (but perfectly respectable for the time) fashion while Franny offers yet another top notch example of the «boogie lick» in question. And yet it was not the lyrically disturbing and provoking, but musically less exciting ʽThirteen Womenʼ, and not the lyrically educational ʽBirth Of The Boogieʼ with its flattering portrayal of «Zulu Joe», but the lyrically inane, yet musically riveting ʽRock Around The Clockʼ that made history after all — as well as ʽRazzle Dazzleʼ ("if itʼs all night long") and the already mentioned ʽABC Boogieʼ.

And thatʼs the way it goes in general: the common mood of Rock Around The Clock is not paranoia or innuendo, but reckless love of life, perfect not only for the middle-ground-oriented teens from happy American families in the 1950s, but, most of the time, even for their parents, if theyʼd only be willing to loosen up just for a moment (actually, it is hard to understand how any American parent at the time who had, at least once in his/her life, somersaulted to a wild performance by a big jazz band or a jump blues combo — which would probably include the absolute majority of American parents, at least in the big cities — could, even in theory, object to The Cometsʼ rockʼnʼroll antics). Yet, at the same time, even fifty years after the fact, the aura of freshness, excitement, and inspiration of these re­cor­dings still persists. Perhaps this is not the proverbial spirit of perfectly distilled rockʼnʼroll that we find here, but if not, then it is at least the proverbial spirit of rockʼnʼrollʼs elder, slightly less rebellion-prone, brother.

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