Bill Haley And The Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets came out of Chester, and before they were a rock and roll band, Haley was a Western swing man. Everything changed when he took "Rocket 88", the Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm side that ranks among the very first rock and roll records, and recut it rockabilly style; after that, the group went rock. Hit versions of "Crazy Man, Crazy" and "Shake, Rattle & Roll" came out of that switch, and so did "Rock Around the Clock", which stood for years as the best-selling rock single ever made.

From late 1954 to late 1956 they were unstoppable, with nine top-20 singles, and the hits kept coming: "Dim, Dim the Lights", "See You Later, Alligator", "Razzle-Dazzle", "Rip It Up". In 1956 they turned up on the big screen with disc jockey Alan Freed in Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock. Johnny Grande, Billy Williamson, Danny Cedrone, Marshall Lytle on double bass, Joey D'Ambrosio, Franny Beecher and Rudy Pompilli all passed through the ranks.

But once wilder acts like Elvis Presley and Little Richard showed up, the clean-cut Comets started to look like yesterday's news, and their popularity slipped. Europe stayed loyal to Haley, and the 1970s brought a comeback on the nostalgia circuit. Haley died in 1981, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Comets in 2012, and in the years after his death at least seven different groups claimed the Comets name.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.