A leader who would let you use every bit of talent in you. To head that family, we needed a leader - not just a guy who could stamp out a beat, but someone we could look up to, that we could learn from. When it came time to go to work, we had settled one thing - we both wanted to get into an outfit where the guys would stick together until we amounted to something. We sat around getting all our gripes off our chests and our ambitions into words. This band is going to break up for sure.” We work in a joint about as big as two phone booths pushed together, everybody’s got a beef and no one gets a chance to play what he wants to play. He has the Irish gift for making a joke out of anything, but now his face was long. The family would be together.ĪLSO SEE: In the ’50s, they thought rock ‘n’ roll music was just a teenage fad The author, second from the leftīilly was homesick, too. Dad would get home from work and there would be laughing and singing. About now, my mother would be fixing the spaghetti, my sister, Rose Marie, and my little brother, Dino, would be buzzing around. “And live better,” I added, thinking of my home in South Philadelphia. “I know kids back in Norristown, Pennsylvania,” he said, “who deliver groceries to make date money and come out better than this.” Billy, totaling his loot, was even more disgusted. If I ate careful, I’d get through the next week. I pulled my remaining cash out of my pocket. We had settled our hotel bill, paid our union tax, picked up our laundry and pressing, and had taken care of those extras which always creep in. It sounded real great - at home - to say I got ninety bucks a week for playing the accordion. The Comet line-up - in the usual order - Al Rex, bass myself (John Grande!), accordion Franny Beecher, electric guitar Bill Haley, guitar (and “ideal” boss) Billy Williamson, steel guitar Ralph Jones, drummer Rudy Pompillii, sax. Had my mother seen it, she wouldn’t have looked more than once. If any of the pretty girls who gave us the eye when we were on stand had ever got a load of that room, they would never have looked at us twice. The bed sagged and so did the floor the curtains were dirty and the carpet torn. I was seventeen, Billy was twenty-one, and that hotel room of ours was worn out fifty years before either of us was born. What Billy and I had thought was our first important band job had turned into a stinker. It’s strange now to realize that it had anything to do with The Comets - and that happy beat called rock ‘n’ roll - for our gloom was so thick you couldn’t have dented it with a rimshot. We were a pair of real sad cats, Billy Williamson and I, that day back in Newark.
Bill hayley and the comets rock around the clock tv#
Rocking around with Bill Haley & His Comets (1957)īy John Grande of Bill Haley’s Comets – Radio & TV Mirror, February 1957 Taken together, they offer some interesting behind-the-scenes takes on what it was like to have screaming success during the early days of rock. His account, written for the old-school entertainment fan magazine Radio & TV Mirror, offers a unique look at the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, comin’ to you direct from the 1950s.Īlong with several rarely-seen photos, Johnny shared how the band got together, their musical inventions, and what life was like for the group when they were on tour.Īfter that, you’ll find a 1970 interview with Mr Haley, when he took a look back at his career, and talked about his ongoing plans. So what’s the story with Bill Haley & His Comets? Where did they come from - and where did they go?īelow are insights from two people: one of the guys who was in the Comets, and then Bill Haley himself.įirst up is an article by Johnny Grande, the piano player/accordionist in the band. The Beatles’ John Lennon would one day go on record saying, “I had no idea about doing music as a way of life until rock and roll hit me.” And what exactly was it that hit him? “ Rock Around The Clock.” David Gilmour from Pink Floyd said the same song probably had something to do with him picking up his first guitar. And when we say big time - it was on fire.Įlvis would soon look up to him. In fact, Bill Haley was turning 30 as his musical career hit the big time. On July 9, 1955, this rollicking two-minute tune was the first rock and roll recording to hit the top of Billboard’s Pop chart.įamous follow-ups included “Shake, Rattle & Roll” and “See You Later, Alligator.”īut the ride to the top wasn’t direct, and it wasn’t smooth. That’s because they are the group behind one of the first huge rock and roll hit songs, “Rock Around the Clock.” Though the name might not be up there in lights as bright as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry, Bill Haley & His Comets certainly deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence.