Rock Around the Clock

It was the first rock and roll record to top the pop charts in both the US and UK^[7]—Bill Haley had American chart success with "Crazy Man, Crazy" in 1953, and in 1954, "Shake, Rattle and Roll" sung by Big Joe Turner reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. Haley's recording became an anthem for rebellious 1950s youth,^[8] particularly after it was included in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle. It was number 1 on the pop charts for two months and went to number 3 on the R&B chart.^[9]


The recording is widely considered to be the song that, more than any other, brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world. The song is ranked No. 159 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.


Although it was first recorded by Italian-American band Sonny Dae and His Knights on March 20, 1954,^[10] Myers claimed the song had been written specifically for Haley but, for legal reasons, Haley was unable to record it himself until April 12, 1954.


The original full title of the song was "We're Gonna Rock Around the Clock Tonight!". This was later shortened to "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock", though this form is generally only used on releases of the 1954 Bill Haley Decca Records recording; most other recordings of this song by Haley and others (including Sonny Dae) shorten this title further to its present form.


In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."^[11]

After leaving Essex Records in the spring of 1954, Bill Haley signed with Decca Records, and the band's first recording session was set for April 12, 1954, at the Pythian Temple studios in New York City.^[3][4] The recording session almost failed to take place because the band was traveling on a ferry that got stuck on a sandbar en route to New York from Philadelphia. Once at the studio, producer Milt Gabler (Gabler was the uncle of actor Billy Crystal and had produced Louis Jordan as well as Billie Holiday), insisted the band work on a song entitled "Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)" (written and previously recorded by Dickie Thompson), which Gabler wanted to promote as the A-side of the group's first single for Decca.


Near the end of the session, the band finally recorded a take of "Rock Around the Clock", but Haley's vocals were drowned out by the band. A second take was quickly made with minimal accompaniment while Sammy Davis Jr. waited outside the studio for his turn behind the microphone. Decca engineers later combined the two versions into one version. (Comets piano player Johnny Grande tells a slightly different version, claiming that the only reason a second take was recorded was that the drummer made an error.)


Many musicians have claimed that they performed on the recording session for "Rock Around the Clock". Song co-writer Myers once claimed he had played drums on the piece, although he also claimed to have been advising the sound mixer in the recording booth.^[14] According to the official record sheet from the session, however, the musicians on the famous recording are:


Dick Richards, Haley's drummer at the time, confirmed in a 2016 interview with Dutch journalist Gerbren Deves, that it was not him, but Gussak playing drums on the recording. Despite not being members of Bill Haley and His Comets, Gussak and Cedrone were trusted session players that Haley had used before. Cedrone's guitar solo was one that he used before on Bill Haley And The Saddlemen's version of "Rock the Joint" in 1952, and is considered one of the classic rock and roll guitar solos of all time. (Cedrone died in a fall down a stairway on June 17, 1954, and never lived to see his contribution become famous and legendary.) The second instrumental break recreates a popular rhythm and blues "out chorus" with tenor sax and guitar emulating the rhythm section.


The version of "Rock Around the Clock" that was used in the movie Blackboard Jungle differs from the hit single version. The difference is in the two solo breaks. The record has the guitar solo taking the first break and the sax solo taking the second break. The movie version is just the opposite with the sax solo coming first.


In a 2005 retrospective on his uncle Milt Gabler's work (The Milt Gabler Story), Billy Crystal identifies Haley's 1954 recording of "Rock Around the Clock" as the single most important song Gabler ever produced. Gabler had previously been responsible for the highly successful string of R&B and jump blues recordings by Louis Jordan in the late 1940s, which were characterised by their strong beat, clearly enunciated lyrics and high production values, all features which Gabler sought to repeat in Haley's recordings. Also significantly, "Rock Around The Clock" was recorded in the very same month that Atlantic Records issued Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll". In relation to "Rock Around The Clock", Gabler said: "I was aware that rock was starting. I knew what was happening in the Philadelphia area, and "Crazy Man, Crazy" had been a hit about a year before that. It already was starting and I wanted to take it from there."^[15]


Although the record is sometimes claimed to be the first in the rock and roll genre, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that "Rock Around the Clock" and "That's All Right" were generally not considered the first rock and roll records but rather "the first white artists' interpretations of a sound already well-established by black musicians almost a decade before. It was a raucous, driving, unnamed variant of rhythm and blues that came complete with lyrics that talked about 'rocking'." Later in the same article, Petridis relates that Tony Cajiao, then the editor of Now Dig This!, offered the conclusion "... you have to say that Rock Around the Clock was the first record that really brought everything together, that made tremors around the world."^[16]