Bill Haley and His Comets
1954 Comets
L to R: Billy Williamson, Johnny Grande, Joey Ambrose, Marshall Lytle, Dick Richards
Billy Haley and his Comets fused elements of country music, Western Swing, and black
R&B to produce some of rock and roll's earliest hits. His "Crazy, Man Crazy"
from 1953 was the first rock and roll record to make the pop charts.
| Members: Billy Haley - guitar Johnny Grande - accordion and piano Billy Williamson - steel guitar Rudy Pompelli - sax Marshall Lytle - bas replaced by Al Rex Francis Beecher - Spanish guitar Don Raymond - drums - replaced by Ralph Jones in 1953 Dick Richards - real name Richard Bocelli - drums |
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Bill Haley was born in Highland Park, Michigan on July 6, 1925 to William and Maude Haley. The couple's second child, Haley had a sister Margaret who was born two years earlier.
When Haley was four while having an operation to repair an inner ear ailment the doctor accidental cut an optic nerve. The result was that Haley would never ever see out of his left eye.
The Haleys had moved to Detroit from Firebrick, Kentucky, where William Sr. found work in a nearby service station as a mechanic while his wife gave piano lessons in their home for twenty-five cents an hour. Maude Haley, a woman of strong religious convictions, had come to America with her family from Ulverston in Lancastshire, England before the First World War. Later the family moved to Boothwyn, near the town of Chester, Pennsylvania.
William Haley Sr. was a quiet man from the hills of Eastern Kentucky who had to quit school early to find work. His father had died young and his mother desperately needed his income to raise the younger children. William Sr. struggled with this burden until the last of his brothers and sisters were educated and on their own. Only then, after he was thirty years old, did he marry.
Haley's father played the banjo and mandolin. Though he couldn't read music he had an ear for country music and was able to pick out any tune he wanted by ear.
At thirteen Haley received his first guitar. His father taught him to play the basic chords and notes by ear. It was at this time he began his dream of becoming a singing cowboy like the ones he idolized every Saturday afternoon at the movie houses in nearby Marcus Hook or Chester.
In June of 1940, just before his fifteenth birthday, Haley left school after finishing the eighth grade and went to work bottling water at Bethel Springs. This company sold pure spring water and fruit flavored soft drinks in a three state area. Here he worked for 35 cents an hour, filling large five gallon glass bottles with spring water. Only the absolute best of the best were making a living from making music.
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At 18 he made his first record "Candy Kisses" and for the next four years was a guitarist and singer with country and western bands.
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After time on the road with the Down Homers Haley returned to his parents' home in Booth's Corner in September of 1946. He was ill, disillusioned and so broke he had to walk from the train station in Marcus Hook four miles to Booth's Corner. His only request to his mother was not to tell anyone he was home, not even his fiancée Dorothy. Bill fell into bed and slept thirty hours. Over the next two weeks Mrs. Haley slowly nursed her itinerant son back to health.
Dorothy Haley
By the age of 21, Haley felt he wasn't going to make it big as a cowboy singer, ill, he left the 'Downhomers', and returned to Chester to host a local radio program.. At this time he also married his childhood sweetheart Dorothy Crowe a beautiful part American Indian girl.
Bill Haley as musical director WPWA 1949
Left to right: Julian Barnard, Wayne Wright, Fran Chandler, Bill Haley
Haley was hired in 1947 as musical director for radio station WPWA. Working twelve to sixteen hours a day, six days a week he interviewed dozens of local people, always looking for good ideas and new talent. Each Sunday he would go to Radio Park and invite celebrities to do a special half hour program where he would interview them and ask them to sing or play their latest tunes.
The Four Aces of Swing
( l to r) Al Constantine,Tex King, Bill Haley, and Julian "Bashful Barney"
Barnard
It was during this time that he put together a band The Four Aces of Swing that performed on the his show. In 1948 on the Cowboy label Haley recorded with The Four Aces of Western Swing. The Four Aces disbanded in mid '49 and Haley formed a new band, the Downhomers with which he recorded country music. Later he left the group to return Chester to host a local radio program.
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In the summer of 1950, through the efforts of Jimmy Myers, Bill Haley and his Saddlemen cut their first records. They were on Ed Wilson's Keystone label, a small Philadelphia independent publisher. The songs were standard western swing tunes: "Deal Me A Hand" /" Ten Gallon Stetson" and "Susan Van Dusan" /" I'm Not To Blame." They were the first recordings of the band that would become the nucleus of the world famous Comets.
With their new, exciting sound the name "Saddlemen" no
longer seemed appropriate. According to Marshall Lytle, it was Bob Johnson, Program
Director at WPWA who first suggested the name Haley's Comets. "Ya 'know, with a
name like Haley, you guys should call your group the Comets!"
Just before the Thanksgiving holidays in 1952, Haley's band changed their name and their
image for the last time. Off came the cowboy boots and the white Stetsons. With some
regrets and more than a little apprehension, the four young musicians, turned their backs
on their beloved country/ western music and bravely faced an unknown future as "Bill
Haley and His Comets".
One example of that change was "Rock the Joint" which sold 75,000 copies. In 1953 he wrote "Crazy Man Crazy" which became the first rock and roll record to make the Billboard pop chart reaching the Top 20.
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On April 1st, 1954, Jimmy Myers, Milt Gabler and Bill Haley met in Decca's New York offices. The three men discussed a contract for four records a year, a standard royalty of 5% of sales, $5,000.00 in advance royalties and the understanding that Decca would mail out each release to two thousand disc-jockeys with full support publicity. Plus full page ads in Billboard and Cash Box magazines! With the deal set and signed, the three men shook hands and agreed on a recording date four days after the Essex contract was due to expire.
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Milt Gabler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991
One young Comet fan was Peter Ford, son of actor Glenn Ford and actress Eleanor Ford. Glenn Ford would play the lead role of Richard Dadier, a new teacher at North Trades School, in Blackboard Jungle. the movie's screenwriter and director Richard Brooks would occassionaly meet with Ford at his house to go over upcoming scenes. During one of those times Brooks told Ford he was looking for music for the movie's sound track, something appropriate for what would be a controversial and shocking film. Ford suggested that brooks listen to some of Peter's record collection. Out of that collection Brooks decided to use (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock for the Black Board Jungle soundtrack. It would be played at the film's opening and the movie's closing credits.
It was while at Decca that Haley fell under the influence of Milt Gabler who had produced Louis Jordan. Gabler would convince Haley to change his sound. That change would be evident when on April 12th 1954, at Pythian Temple Studio with the recording of "Rock Around the Clock." The song that introduced rock & roll to White America. "Rock Around the Clock." Originally recorded by Sonny Dae in 1952, "Rock Around the Clock" had initial sales topping 75,000. "Rock Around the Clock" was a modest hit, until the song was used as the title track of "The Blackboard Jungle," a movie about juvenile delinquents, some 12 months later.
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His next record a cover of Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll' was a top ten hit. It was the first rock & roll record to sell a million copies
Danny Cedrone
On July 17, 1954, three months after the Shake, Rattle and Roll session the Comets lost their studio guitarist Danny Cedrone, who laid on Rock Around the Clock the first recognizable guitar solo of rock and roll. Cedrone had been found dead with a broken neck at the bottom of a flight of stairs in South Philadelphia. Cedrone had returned from an early engagement at a nearby 819 Bar, his wife asked him to go out and pick-up something to eat. He never made it back. He would be replaced by Francis Breecher who had been introduced to the Comets by Billy Williamson a year earlier.
The next really big hit came with "See You Later Alligator" which sold a million copies within a month.
Comets in 1955
L to R counter clockwise from top
Bill Haley guitar, saxophonist Rudy Pompilli, Bill Williamson, bassist Al Rex,
accordianist Johnny Grande, drummer Ralph Jones and guitarist Fran Beecher
The Jodimars
(L-R) Marshall Lytle, Dick Richards, Max Daffner, Joey D'Ambrosio, Chuck Hess
While Haley, Ferguson, Williamson and Grande shared in the band's profits, the rest of the Comets worked on salary, In September, 1955 Dick Richards, Marshall Lytle and Joey D'Ambrosio went to the Comet's manager Jim Ferguson and asked for a $50 raise. Turned down they gave two weeks notice. They then went and signed with Capital Records and recorded as the Jodimars. Haley replaced them but resented their leaving for many years.
Lytle was replaced by Al Rex Haley's original basist from the Saddlemen, D'Ambrosio by Rudy Pompilli and Richards by Ralph Jones.
"We took parts of four different types of music: dixieland,
country and western, rhythm and blues, and our old jazz standards"
Bill Haley, BBC interview, September 14, 1956
London 1968
In 1957, Haley began touring touring Britain as his popularity began fading at home. The first American Rock and Roll star to come to Britain, he was met with large and enthusiastic crowds. The British soon found out what American teenagers already knew. Haley with his spit curl was old (30), overweight and rather mechanical when compared to Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and Elvis who were younger and who's music was more exciting. Bill Haley & His Comets were there first, but now they were part of the establishment.
In Mexico
In 1960 Haley, embroiled in major legal problems relating to his divorce, fled to Mexico, where he became known as the "Spanish King Of Twist" and had a best-selling record in Latin America with "Florida Twist".
Bill Haley y sus Cometas (as the band was known in Hispanic America) signed with the Orfeón label of Mexico and scored an unexpected hit with "Twist Español", a Spanish-language recording based on the twist dance craze, which was sweeping America at the time. Haley followed up with "Florida Twist" which was for a time the biggest-selling single in Mexican history. The band had continued success in Mexico and Latin America over the next few years. They hosted a television series, Orfeon a Go-Go, and made cameo appearances in several movies, lip-synching some of their old hits. Most of the band's output during these years was instrumental recordings. The Comets' association with Orfeon/Dimsa ended 1966.
In 1967, Haley had no recording contracts at all, although the band continued to perform regularly in North America and Europe. During this year, Haley—without the Comets—recorded a pair of demos in Phoenix, Arizona: a country-western song, "Jealous Heart" and "Rock on Baby". Neither recording would be released for 30 years. In 1968, Haley and the Comets recorded a single for the United Artists label, a version of Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis", but no long-term association with the label resulted. In order to revive his recording career, Haley turned to Europe.
By the late 1960s, Haley and the Comets were considered an "oldies" act, though the band's popularity never waned in Europe. The group signed a lucrative deal with Sonet Records of Sweden in 1968 and recorded in a new version of "Rock Around the Clock", which hit the European charts that year. The band recorded a mixture of live and studio albums for the label over the next decade.
In the United States in 1969, promoter Richard Nader launched a series of rock and roll revival concert tours. At one of the first of these shows, held at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Haley received an eight-and-a-half-minute standing ovation following his performance.
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Haley in 1974
In February 1976, Haley's saxophone player and best friend, Rudy Pompilli, died of cancer after a nearly 20-year career with the Comets. Haley continued to tour for the next year with a succession of new sax players, but his popularity was waning again. In early 1977, Haley announced his retirement from performing and settled down at his home in Mexico.
In 1979, Haley was persuaded to return to performing with the offer of a lucrative contract to tour Europe. Most of the new group of Comets were British. Haley appeared on numerous television shows and in the movie Blue Suede Shoes, filmed at one of his London concerts in March 1979. During the March tour, Haley recorded several tracks in London for his next album, Everyone Can Rock & Roll, issued later in 1979, was the last release of new recordings by Haley before his death.
In November 1979, Haley and the Comets performed for Queen Elizabeth II, a moment Haley considered the proudest of his career. It was also the last time he performed in Europe and the last time most fans saw him perform "Rock Around the Clock
In 1980, Bill Haley and His Comets toured South Africa, but Haley's health was failing, and it was reported that he had a brain tumor. The tour was show Haley in good spirits and good voice. Planned concerts and proposed recording sessions in New York and Memphis were cancelled, including a potential reunion with past members of the Comets. Haley returned to his home in Harlingen, Texas, where he died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on February 9, 1981, at the age of 55.
In April 1981, Bill Haley & His Comets returned to the British musical charts once again when MCA Records (inheritors of the Decca catalogue) released "Haley's Golden Medley", a hastily compiled edit of the band's best-known hits in the style of the then-popular "Stars on 45" format. The single reached Number 50 in the UK but was not released in the United States.
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In 1987, Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At that time, supporting bands were not also named to the Hall of Fame. This policy was subsequently changed, and in 2012 a special committee of the Hall of Fame inducted the Comets. Bill Haley and His Comets were also inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In June 2005, Bill Haley And His Comets were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. In July 2005, the surviving members of the 1954–55 Comets represented Haley when Bill Haley and His Comets were inducted into Hollywood's Rockwalk, a ceremony also attended by Haley's second wife and youngest daughter. The Comets placed their handprints in cement; a space was left blank for Haley.
2010 Comets then and now
(L-R) Billy Williamson, Johnny Grande, Joey Ambrose, Marshall Lytle, Dick Richards
After 1957 Haley had a few minor hits, but spent the remainder of his life touring and playing Rock and Roll Revival shows. In the early morning hours of February 9th, 1981, Bill called two of his sons, Scott and Jack, and had his last known conversations. He died, in his sleep of an apparent heart attack, about 6:30 that morning at his home in Harlingen, Texas.
Rudy Pompilli, died of lung cancer February 5. 1976 in Philadephia.
Marshall Lytle died of lung cancer May 28, 2013 at his home in Port Richey, Florida, he
was 79.
Dick Richards died July 12, 2019 at the age of 95.
Al Rex, real name Al Piccirilli, May 24, 2020 at the age of the age of 92.
Joey Ambrose died August 9, 2021 at the age of 87.
Bill Haley was was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
The Comets were inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012
