Bill Haley & His Comets

54. Tommy Steele & The Steelmen – Singing the Blues (1957)

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The Intro

Guy Mitchell only enjoyed a week at the top of the charts with Singing the Blues before record buyers decided they preferred Tommy Steele’s version. This bizarre turn of events had happened before in December 1953, when Frankie Laine‘s version of Answer Me knocked David Whitfield‘s from the top.

Before

Steele was enjoying immense popularity at the time, and is considered by many to be Britain’s first rock’n’roll star.

Born Thomas William Hicks in Bermondsey, London on 17 December 1936, he had been a merchant seaman, and sang and played guitar and banjo in London coffee houses in his spare time.

He fell in love with rock’n’roll when a ship he worked on docked in Norfolk, Virginia in the US and he heard Buddy Holly on the radio. He and his group, The Steelmen scored their first hit with Rock with the Caveman in 1956, reaching number 13. It was a rip-off of Rock Around the Clock, but a pretty good one.

It was beginning to become common practise for British singers to record covers of songs that were going down well in the US, and release them over here before the imports became better known. Although his version of Singing the Blues hadn’t beaten Mitchell’s to the top spot, it had knocked it down after only a week.

Review

By this point, Elvis-mania had well and truly gripped the nation, and Tommy Steele decided to ape him for his version. Clearly this worked at the time, but his affectation is so obvious now as to sound laughable. His slurring of the opening line is way too over-the-top, and makes Pat Boone sound much more authentic at ripping the King off. Thankfully Steele settles down and things pick up when he drops the impression, but The Steelmen’s backing is almost identical to Mitchell’s, right down to the whistling, so inevitably you compare the two, and when you do, Steele is the loser. Mitchell was a veteran by this point, and sounds relaxed and at home with the material.

After

So, Steele had succeeded in beating Presley to a UK number 1 single, and won the initial battle with Mitchell, but was only in pole position for a week before everybody decided they’d actually preferred Mitchell’s version, which went back to the top for its second of three stints. Perhaps Steele should have laid off the Elvis impressions and stuck to sounding like Bill Haley & His Comets.

The Outro

Steele’s debut album, The Tommy Steele Story, became the first number 1 album by a UK act later that year. Also in 1957, he found himself competing against Mitchell once more, as they both covered Mervin Endley’s sequel, Knee Deep in the Blues. Neither version fared as well, though. He went solo in 1958, and continued with his music until the rise of The Beatles, before wisely concentrating on his film and theatre career, and still has an army of dedicated fans. He’s starred as the lead role in the musical Scrooge since 2009, and is also a successful sculptor.

The Info

Written by

Melvin Endsley

Producer

Hugh Mendl

Weeks at number 1

1 (11-17 January)

Meanwhile…

16 January: The Cavern Club, a place for jazz aficionados before later becoming home to The Beatles as they went stratospheric, opened its doors for the first time.

40. Dickie Valentine with Johnny Douglas & His Orchestra – Christmas Alphabet (1955)

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The Intro

As winter 1955 dawned, Rock Around the Clock-mania had set in, and Bill Haley & His Comets were finally enjoying their stint at number 1. Although this was a seismic event in music, it would be wrong to think that from then on, the UK number 1s were constantly rock’n’roll numbers. Teenagers, as they had recently been named, still only represented a portion of the record-buying market. There were still a lot of older folk who were more than happy with the status quo, who liked  nice crooners singing something warm and cosy, and especially with the dark nights drawing in, etc.

Before

Smooth singer Dickie Valentine had enjoyed a very successful year, with his collaboration with The Stargazers, Finger of Suspicion, topping the charts back in January, followed by three top 10 hits. He then topped and tailed 1955’s singles chart by cottoning on to an idea that would serve artists well for years to come – if you want a number 1 at Christmas time, why not do a song about Christmas time?

Christmas Alphabet had been written by Buddy Kaye and Jules Loman the previous year, and was performed by US singing trio The McGuire Sisters. Kaye liked his alphabet songs – he’d written ‘A’ You’re Adorable (The Alphabet Song) back in 1949 for Perry Como, although these days it’s probably best known as featuring in Angela Rippon’s guest spot on Morecambe & Wise’s Christmas special in 1976. Valentine’s version of Christmas Alphabet became the more famous version, and the oldies won out, knocking Haley from his lofty perch and making it the first explicitly-festive Christmas number 1.

Review

It’s based around a very simple idea. Valentine just lists seasonal stuff around each letter that makes up the word ‘Christmas’. He runs through it twice, to make sure it’s all sunk in, and that’s it, job done. Some of the rhyming is tenuous though…

‘S is for the Santa who makes every kid his pet,
Be good and he’ll bring you everything in your Christmas alphabet!’

Erm, sorry, what? Santa makes every kid his pet? It’s news to me. Disturbing news, at that.

Although by this stage of my blog I’ve been longing for rock’n’roll to come along and shake things up, I have to confess that I don’t mind Christmas Alphabet. Reason being, I’m a sucker for a Christmas song. Especially older ones. Christmas is of course, a time for feeling all cosy and warm, if you’re lucky enough to have that option. 50s music is often perfect at encapsulating that. So I’m quite surprised, especially considering its historical importance, that Christmas Alphabet seems to have been forgotten about. You never hear it in shops, and it’s never on compilations. John Lewis are unlikely to get someone to make one of those annoying, wet, folky covers and stick it on an advert, either. It might be a slight little number, but it deserves to be remembered.

After

You could say the same about Valentine himself. Despite being adored at the time (he won New Musical Express’s best male vocalist category from 1953-57), he’s been largely forgotten.

The Outro

Valentine’s popularity waned in the next decade, despite two TV series (one with Peter Sellers) and he met a tragic end on 6 May 1971. Aged only 41, he was driving to a gig in Wales with bandmates at over 90mph in the early hours of the morning, when he lost control of the vehicle on a bend, killing the three of them.

The Info

Written by

Buddy Kaye & Jules Loman

Producer

Dick Rowe

Weeks at number 1

3 (16 December-5 January 1956)

Trivia

Births

23 December: Poet Carol Ann Duffy

Meanwhile…

20 December 1955: Cardiff becomes the official capital of Wales.

1 January 1956: Possession of heroin becomes fully criminalised.

4 January: As 1956 began, it became apparent that the Prime Minister Anthony Eden had plunged in the polls, which seemed surprising following the Conservatives’ solid victory in the election the previous year. Whether Labour had received a bounce off the back of electing their new leader, Hugh Gaitskell, remained to be seen.

39. Bill Haley & His Comets – Rock Around the Clock (1955)

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The Intro

Finally! After nearly 40 blogs, rock’n’roll has arrived. Although not the first song of the genre (nobody really knows if such a song actually exists, although Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats is often credited as such), and not the best either, Rock Around the Clock is understandably credited as the tune that brought it to a wider audience, and influenced millions, including many youngsters who were taking note and went on to become star musicians themselves. Rock’n’roll was about feeling rather than form, about stripping away such soppy, sappy lyrics over flowery, string-packed instruments. There’s no wonder it helped bring about the dawn of the teenager. Why should young adults grow from children to instant adulthood? Why not have some fun first, before life gets too dull and dreary? Haley may have been way too old to be a teenager, but it didn’t matter. Rock Around the Clock represented the new young energy that would help sweep the country out of the post-war doldrums.

Before

Rock Around the Clock is believed to have been first written in 1952. Credited to Max C. Freedman and Jimmy De Knight (a pseudonym belonging to James E. Myers), it was first recorded by Sonny Day and His Knights, although apparently they’d always had Haley’s group in mind.

William John Clifton Haley was born in Highland, Michigan on 6 July 1925. When he was four he underwent an inner-ear mastoid operation which accidentally severed an optic nerve. This left him blind in his left eye for the rest of his life, and may explain why he grew a kiss curl over his right eye.

The Haley family moved to Bethel, Pennsylvania due to the effects of the Great Depression when he was seven. Both his parents were musicians (his mother originally came from Ulverston in Lancashire) and by the time he was 13, their son was singing and playing the guitar.

Two years later Haley left home to find fame. He spent the 40s in several bands, including The Down Homers and The Four Aces of Western Swing, and was even known as Silver Yodelling Bill Haley at one point.

By 1951 he was leading a country music act known as Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, but they changed their name to Bill Haley with Hayley’s Comets and adopted an early rock’n’roll sound after covering Rocket 88. They had their first hit with Crazy Man, Crazy, which is perhaps the first song of the genre to be shown on television, used on the soundtrack to a play starring James Dean. Soon after, they settled on Bill Haley & His Comets, and they were pianist Johnny Grande, steel guitarist Billy WIlliamson and bassist Marshall Lytle. Before long they had their first drummer, Earl Famous, who was soon replaced by Dick Richards.

In spring 1954 they began working with Milt Gabler, who had worked on several proto-rock’n’roll tracks previously. In their first session they recorded Rock Around the Clock as a last minute B-side to Thirteen Women And Only One Man In Town, a track about the survivors of a nuclear bomb.

Luckily for Haley and co, the son of a famous actor had become quite the fan of that B-side. 10-year-old Peter Ford was Glenn Ford’s son, and Glenn was due to co-star alongside Sidney Poitier in a film about teenage delinquents called Blackboard Jungle. He suggested to director Richard Brooks to stick the song over the opening credits. Swiftly capitalising on the attention, the song was re-released and spent two months at number 1 in the US. It was only a matter of time before their success was repeated in the UK, a nation starving for the return of the good times.

Review

I’m stating the obvious by saying it sounds quaint compared with the songs it later influenced, but there’s more raw energy packed into the opening of Rock Around the Clock than any UK number 1 up to that point. Haley’s voice commands you to take note and to have a good time, and the Comets ably assist, and so does guitarist Danny Cedrone, on loan from The Esquire Boys, who couldn’t think of a new solo and simply redid his performance on their earlier track Rock This Joint. It didn’t matter, it’s blistering and is easily the highlight of the song.

After

In a genre full of tragedy, Cedrone was one of the first victims. He never had chance to enjoy the group’s fame as a month after they had recorded Rock Around the Clock, he fell down some stairs and broke his neck, dying at the age of 33. By the time they became number 1, the Comets were a different group to the ones that recorded the song. In addition to Cedrone’s death, three other members left the group over money issues.

Before long, the younger acts they had helped influence suddenly made Bill Haley & His Comets look old and staid by comparison. They had become victims of the youth movement they helped usher in. Stardom lasted longer in Europe, where they enjoyed a few more years of being mobbed by fans. But rock’n’roll came and went many times over the years, with several revivals, and Rock Around the Clock was re-recorded several times and often reissued.

The Outro

Haley battled the booze during the 70s, and towards the end of his life he had a brain tumour. He died on 9 February 1981, aged 55 of ‘natural causes, most likely a heart attack’, according to his death certificate. But in a sense Rock Around the Clock‘s influence has made him immortal.

The Info

Written by

Max C Freedman & Jimmy De Knight

Producer

Milt Gabler

Weeks at number 1

5 (25 November-15 December 1955, 6-19 January 1956) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE DECADE*

Trivia

Births

30 November 1955: Singer Billy Idol
4 December: Conservative MP Philip Hammond
15 December: The Clash bassist Paul Simonon
6 January 1956: Presenter Angus Deayton/Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
9 January: Actress Imelda Staunton
17 January: Singer Paul Young

Deaths

25 November: Ecologist Sir Arthur Tansley

Meanwhile…

2 December: The Barnes rail crash in Barnes, South London, left 13 dead and 35 injured.

7 December: Long-running Labour leader Clement Attlee resigned. For all the positive changes he helped bring about after the war, it was time for him to pass on the torch if the party was to usurp new Tory Prime Minister Anthony Eden. One week later, Hugh Gaitskell, a right-wing politician by many Labour members’ standards, defeated Nye Bevan and was named as the new leader.

38. The Johnston Brothers with Johnny Douglas & His Orchestra – Hernando’s Hideaway (1955)

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The Intro

Compared to the charts in the previous two years, the number 1s of 1955 have been quite diverse, and weird at times. We’ve had standard, dreary early 50s music, ballads, novelty songs, mambo and country music. But when are we going to get to some rock’n’roll? The genre that changed everything, that shook up pop forever?

Before

We’re nearly there, actually. Earlier that year, a film called Blackboard Jungle had been released. It featured rock’n’roll as its soundtrack, and by November, the music that featured in the opening credits, a former B-side for Bill Haley & His Comets called Rock Around the Clock, had been gathering momentum. At the same time, Rock Island Line by skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan was also released. A revolution had begun.

First though, a song from a musical. I’m about as much of a fan of musicals as I am country, bar a few exceptions. Well, who doesn’t love Grease?

Hernando’s Hideaway, by the Johnston Brothers, knocked Jimmy Young from the top on 11 November. It featured in The Pajama Game, a Broadway show by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, that had moved to the West End earlier that year and was originally performed by Carol Haney.

The Johnston Brothers were a male vocal group formed in 1949 and led by the wonderfully named Johnny Johnston. The other members were Alan Dean, Eddie Lester and Denny Vaughan. Like the Walker Brothers, they weren’t actually related. Johnston had been a singer and arranger with the BBC and had previously been a member of The Keynotes. The Johnston Brothers signed with Decca Records in 1953 and soon had their first top 10 hit with Oh Happy Day.

With The Pajama Game sparking so much interest, several versions of Hernando’s Hideaway were available, but it was the brothers’ version that ruled the roost on these shores, beating off Johnnie Ray and Archie Bleyer.

Review

Set to a very famous tango tune (is this tune stolen from a tango standard, or is this how it became famous?), the song concerns a dodgy-sounding Spanish dive where lovers can meet in private. Featuring atmospheric castanets and shouts of ‘Ole!’, the Johnston Brothers, at least, don’t attempt comedy Spanish accents, and let’s face it, back then, nobody would have minded if they had. I’m sure it works fine in the context of a musical, but a UK number 1? Not in my eyes, or ears, but maybe I’m getting impatient for what is to come.

After

The Johnston Brothers had a few more singles before calling it a day, with Johnny Johnston moving into writing advertising jingles. Johnny Johnston Jingles Ltd (again, great name) came up with, among others, the famous ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ jingle.

The Outro

Hernando’s Hideaway is still the nickname for the smoking room in the House of Commons.

The Info

Written by

Richard Adler & Jerry Ross

Producer

Hugh Mendl

Weeks at number 1

2 (11 November-24 November)

Trivia

Births

17 November: Go West singer Peter Cox/Architect Amanda Levete
24 November: Cricketer Ian Botham

Births

Meanwhile…

20 November: The Milton rail crash left 11 dead and 157 injured when a speeding train derailed near Didcot.