Review: Bill Haley - Rockin' The "Oldies"! (1957)
Tracks: 1) The Dipsy Doodle; 2) You Can’t Stop Me From Dreaming; 3) Apple Blossom Time; 4) Moon Over Miami; 5) Is It True What They Say About Dixie?; 6) Carolina In The Morning; 7) Miss You; 8) Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone; 9) Ain’t Misbehavin’; 10) One Sweet Letter From You; 11) I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter; 12) Somebody Else Is Taking My Place.
REVIEW
We’re goin’ conceptual, boys. So this was clearly not the very first time that the Comets attempted to mine golden oldies territory for inspiration, but it certainly was the very first time that they — or, for that matter, anybody, gaining the band an extra point for innovation — attempted to «rock the oldies» over the course of an entire LP. Twelve rusty old standards from the Songbook here, dusted off and polished late Fifties style, for your pleasure and mine. What a better way to put an end to hostilities between the young people and their parents than by taking parents’ music and performing it just the way that the young people want to hear it?
As you might have already guessed, this is far from the most illuminating moment in Bill Haley’s life story. Although the album’s opening track, ‘The Dipsy Doodle’, was released as a single, it failed to become a hit, and the album never attracted much attention either: if there really ever was a goal to create «wholesome family entertainment» in this manner, it never reached the mark — in reality, teen fans must not have been too happy about dancing their heads off to all these titles they knew (and probably abhorred at the time) from their parents' records; likewise, the conservative parents would not be too thrilled to hear their old favorites not-too-subtly transformed into the Devil’s own music. Time, of course, brings new perspectives; and now, in retrospect, when titles like ‘Apple Blossom Time’ and ‘Carolina In The Morning’ no longer provoke the kind of allergies that they used to for rebellious teens in the 1950s, and now that Bill Haley’s brand of rock’n’roll is, in itself, an antique as quaint as the swing movement that it was meant to replace, Rockin’ The Oldies has actually become a quirky — and moderately instructive — historical artefact to observe and cherish.
With the Comets still in top instrumental form, and all the standards revved up to proper band standard, these songs hardly sound that much worse than the band’s original classic hits. It is true that most of them get very similar arrangements, that the original Broadway melodies are drastically simplified to fit inside the rockabilly formula, and that, conversely, due to the nature of the material the overall atmosphere is oftentimes too lightweight even for Haley’s usual standards. The one true rocking number on the record is not even ‘Dipsy Doodle’: it is the even faster-moving ‘You Can’t Stop Me From Dreaming’, going all the way to Guy Lombardo’s songbook and given new life here through Franny Beecher’s one-note guitar «shots» and boogie solos.
All the other oldies do seem to be «rocked» indeed, but whether they accept the rockabilly virus happily or quickly develop antibodies is a big open question. Some of this stuff ends up quite similar in tone and mood to Carl Perkins’ early brand of country-bop, except that the Comets are far more fluent and tight in their performance than Carl’s backing band. Some of it ends up just boring and pathetic if you know the context: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’, for instance, is so inextricably associated with Fats Waller and his piano chops that hearing it deconstructed this way (and there ain’t even a guitar solo in sight!) just makes me sad and confused.
Still, do give the record some love even if it is essentially a failed experiment — to the best of my knowledge, this is the first album in rock history to do the «nostalgic genre reversal» thing, at least formally paving the way to all similar experiments in the future. Call it the grandaddy of David Bowie’s Pin Ups, if you wish. Of course, it might be the most miserable type of rock experiment in general, but at least they sometimes get you a-thinkin’ on metaphysical issues, such as what it is that makes a song great and how does relevance get transferred through the ages and what the hell is a dipsy doodle anyway... you know, that kind of train of thought.
Only Solitaire: Bill Haley review page