ROCK OF AGES
One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock.. . MARION McMULLEN looks at how Rock Around The Clock has become a film and TV favourite since it was first recorded 70 years ago
WHAT do Superman, Happy Days and Midsomer Murders all have in common?
The answer is they have all featured Bill Haley’s classic rock anthem Rock Around The Clock.
The track, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this month, was the first record to sell a million copies in Britain alone and it has featured in 14 films and been recorded in 35 languages.
It can be heard in everything from 1973 movie American Graffiti by Star Wars director George Lucas and animated TV series Family Guy to BBC drama Ballykissangel.
It was also the original theme tune to US comedy series Happy Days starring Henry Winkler as the Fonz when the sitcom began in 1974.
Rock Around The Clock was recorded by Bill Haley and The Comets in New York on April 12, 1954, at the Pythian Temple Studio. It became the anthem of the new rock ‘ n’ roll music genre. Before Elvis Presley was topping the charts with Heartbreak Hotel, Bill was leading the rock revolution.
He and The Comets also appeared in the 1956 movie Rock Around The Clock about an orchestra manager discovering what was replacing big band music.
The movie’s publicity proclaimed “The Music. The Dancing. Rock ‘n’ Roll at its beginning” and Queen Elizabeth requested a copy of the film to be shown at Buckingham Palace.
The first full-length rock ‘n’ roll movie also featured music group The Platters, but there was no doubt Bill Haley was the film’s big star singing, “Oh, Strauss discovered waltzes, the Handy found the blues, then Haley came along with a rocking song”.
He went on to explain “R is all the rock, here’s the band, it a-moving, O more than act, it’s a go-go, grooving, C what I mean is a heart action, K like a kiss it’s a cool attraction. n. Ooh, it’ll getcha getcha, I gonna betcha, R-O-C-K, Rock!”
When the movie had UK teens up and dancing, one theatre manager in London stopped the film and appealed to them to return to their seats.
Some small towns even banned the film and the Rank Organisation restricted screenings.
The Hollywood Reporter also said teenagers in Norway stormed through the streets of Oslo after the film’s first showings shouting “more rock!”.
It is said Bill and the entire band were paid $40,000 for playing nine songs in the movie and the success of the film led to Don’t Knock The Rock featuring both Bill and Little Richard in a tale about a DJ trying to show parents that listening to rock ‘n’ roll would not turn their children in juvenile delinquents. Posters announced “Rock ‘n’ ’ Roll R llWill Will Save S The Th Day!” D !”
Again there were reports of teenagers behaving badly by daring to dance in the cinema aisles while the movie was playing. Bill pointed out that the lyrics were inoffensive and said: s “The music is the main thing t and it’s just as easy to write acceptable words”. Rock Around The Clock also featured in the 1955 movie Blackboard b Jungle starring Glenn Fd Ford and a young Sidney Poitier and the record was re-released again and went to number one in the music charts.
Rock Around The Clock was the biggest selling single in the UK in the 1950s and was written by publisher and promoter p James E Myers, who used the alias Jimmy De Knight, and Philadelphia composer p Max C Freedman. The lyrics included the lines “One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock/ Five, six, seven, o’clock, eight o’clock, rock/ Nine ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock rock/ We’re gonna rock round the clock tonight”.
It has been sung by many performers over the years from the Sex Pistols in the 1979 movie The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle to John Legend who sang it as Block Around The Clock in the finale of The Voice in America in 2019.
Sir Elton John is once said to have jived with Queen Elizabeth to the rock track and Bill performed for the monarch at the 1979 royal command performance sharing the bill with Yul Brynner and the cast of the musical The King And I, Les Dawson, film star James Mason, Boney M and flautist James Galway.
Bill and The Comets proved so popular in rehearsals that they were even invited to add an extra number to their performance.
The Queen later chatted backstage to Bill after the show and told him: “You know, we grew up with you”.
Bill once said of Rock Around The Clock: “No matter how bad a show may be going some night, that song will pull us through. It’s my little piece of gold.”