Trivia / Bill Haley & His Comets

• Black Sheep Hit: "Skinny Minnie." Of all of Haley's successful records, this is the one that sounds the least like the well-known Haley style.
  • "Rock Around the Clock" also qualifies considering it was originally treated as an afterthought by producer Milt Gabler and included as an also-ran on the B-side, so it was never expected to be a hit. Then came Blackboard Jungle...
• Breakthrough Hit: "Rock Around The Clock," and how! Not just a breakthrough for them, but a breakthrough for Rock & Roll in general.
  • Although the history books tend to focus on "Rock Around the Clock", it was actually an earlier recording, 1954's version of "Shake Rattle and Roll", that was the first Haley recording (and, by extension, rock and roll recording) to become an international success. Even earlier, in 1953, the group first made the national music charts with "Crazy Man Crazy."
• Creator Breakdown: Seemingly forgotten by the history books, Haley hit the bottle pretty hard towards the end of his life. (He acknowledged being an alcoholic in a 1974 interview.) A brain tumor also caused issues during the last year or so of his life, though he continued to perform until about eight months before his death and plans were in place for a new recording session at the time he died.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Their popularity waned in North America after only a few hits (though they continued to score US chart hits as late as 1960), but they maintained a level of notoriety in Europe, and toured frequently there. How popular? Enough to start riots.
  • After the hits ended in America, the Comets continued to be popular in Latin America where they — not Chubby Checker — popularized The Twist, with their original song "Florida Twist" not only becoming, for a time, the highest-selling Mexican single ever, but the melody, co-written by Haley's sax player, has since become a standard in Mexico. Another recording, the obscure "Chick Safari" from 1960, flopped in the US but reportedly topped the charts in India.
• Harsher in Hindsight: As described under "Hairstyle Inertia" in the main section, Haley's trademark hair curl, often dismissed as goofy and cheesy, has a tragic rationale (it was adopted by young Bill in an attempt to draw attention away from a blinded eye).
  • One of Haley's funniest recordings, 1970's "I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World", becomes less humorous once one realizes it was recorded at a time when, in real life, Haley was battling alcoholism (a fact that wasn't widely known). According to John Swenson's biography of Haley, he was also inebriated during some of the recording sessions for the light-hearted 1972 album Just Rock and Roll.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: European record companies such as Bear Family and Hydra have been slowly issuing previously unreleased or ultra-rare Haley recordings since the 1990s that had been passing between fans for years, including some of his early career recordings for labels such as Center, Atlantic and Keystone since the original rare 78s can sell for thousands of dollars each.
• Revival by Commercialization: The original 1954 recording of "Rock Around the Clock" returned to both the US and UK top 40 charts in 1974 thanks to the song being used as the theme for both the movie American Graffiti and the TV series it inspired, Happy Days (although Happy Days actually used a new recording).
• What Could Have Been:
  • In October 1958, Haley and the Comets toured Germany. Elvis Presley attended at least two of the concerts (one in uniform, the other in civilian clothes) and there was talk of him doing a number or two with Haley, but owing to the riots and other violence already plaguing Haley's performances, it was decided this was too risky.
  • In early 1966, Haley did a favour for his close friend Big Joe Turner (originator of "Shake, Rattle and Roll"), whose career had hit a lull, by lending Turner the Comets for a recording session in Mexico. Sadly, no one thought of getting Haley and Turner to sing a song together. The closest we got was a Mexican TV performance by Turner lip-synching one of his Comets-backed performances, alongside Bill Haley and His Comets themselves.
  • At the time of Haley's death, plans were in place for a recording session in Memphis. Among ideas being circulated in 1980-81 was a reunion of Haley with members of the original Comets from the 1954-55 era.
  • According to the biography of Haley by John Swenson, in the late 1950s the band was approached with the idea of hosting their own weekly TV variety series, but the idea fell apart, allegedly because Haley made unreasonable demands.
  • In a 2005 interview, Marshall Lytle of the 1954-55 Comets recalled that the reason why he, Joey Ambrose and Dick Richards left the Comets in the fall of 1955 was because they were declined a $50/week raise. Had they been granted the raise, the band's history would have been very different as, for example, sax player Ambrose would not have been replaced by Rudy Pompilli, who was destined to stay with Haley for the next 20 years.