BILL Haley was his real name, so what else could he call his support band but The Comets. Haley's number one single created a dividing line between all that came before and all that followed. Rock Around The Clock very nearly didn't make it. Haley had earlier hits with Crazy Man Crazy and Shake, Rattle and Roll, his next release was Thirteen Women with RATC on the B side. This release had poor sales and it looked like it was doomed. The following year, 1955, MGM released The Blackboard Jungle, a film starring Glenn Ford as a high school teacher confronted by violent youths. The opening theme was Rock Around The Clock. In London, enthusiastic young people jived in the aisles and ripped up the seats prompting the film to be banned in several locations.

Bill Haley was the first rock star to tour Britain. He was mobbed by young people wherever he went. Despite being a portly man, married with five children, he became known as the father of rock 'n' roll. A year later when Elvis Presley exploded on the scene he lost his standing but remained as a kind of elder statesman of rock. Haley did not invent the phrase rock 'n' roll, credit for that goes to disc jockey Alan Freed who borrowed the phrase from a 1947 song We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll by Wild Bill Moore.

Rock 'n' roll came with a split opinion depending on how old you were. Frank Sinatra announced it was a "rancid aphrodisiac, sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons, it is the most brutal, ugly, desperate various form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear." Most parents agreed with him but young people loved it, most still do. Rock Around The Clock is the most defining song in rock history. It came when rationing in the UK had just ended. Young people for the first time ever, devised their own youth culture. It began with fashions, even their own distinctive hair styles, now they had their own music. The world was transformed overnight from black and white into glorious colour.

This song has been re-released several times since 1955. It last appeared in the Jive Bunny mastermix in 1989 and reached No1 again. It has sold a total of over 22 million records. Bill Haley hung on to his hair and kept his kiss-curl right to the very end.