Билл Хейли и его кометы: пионеры рок-н-ролла

American rock and roll band
the rock and roll band

Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band formed in 1947 and continuing until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group recorded nine Top 20 singles, one of which was number one and three that were Top Ten. The single "Rock Around the Clock" was the best selling rock single in the history of the genre and maintained that position for several years. Band leader Bill Haley had previously been a Western swing performer; after recording a rockabilly version of Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm's "Rocket 88", one of the first rock and roll recordings, Haley changed his band's musical direction to rock music. They went on to record hit versions of "Crazy Man, Crazy", "Shake, Rattle & Roll", the aforementioned "Rock Around the Clock", "Dim, Dim the Lights", "Rock A Beatin' Boogie", "Razzle Dazzle", "See You Later, Alligator", "The Saints Rock 'N' Roll" and "Rip It Up". In 1956, the group appeared in two early rock and roll movies with disc jockey Alan Freed: Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock. Though the group was considered to be at the forefront of rock and roll during the genre's formative years, the arrival of more risqué acts such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard by 1956 led the more clean cut Haley and his Comets to decline in popularity. Haley would remain popular in Europe and go on to have a comeback as a nostalgia act in the 1970s, along with many of his contemporaries. Following Haley's death, no fewer than seven different groups have existed under the Comets name, all claiming (with varying degrees of authority) to be the continuation of Haley's group. As of the end of 2014, four such groups were still performing in the United States and internationally.

In around the mid 1940s, Bill Haley performed with the Down Homers and formed a group called the Four Aces of Western Swing. The group that later became the Comets initially formed as "Bill Haley and the Saddlemen" c. 1949–1952, and performed mostly country and western songs, though occasionally with a bluesy feel. The group was also the first to record a cover version (in July 1951) of Rocket 88, originally a jump blues song by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. He did so for the Philadelphia based Holiday Records label, in what is now recognized as a rockabilly style. It sold well and was followed in 1952 by a cover of a 1940s rhythm and blues song called "Rock the Joint" for Holiday's sister company, Essex Records. During those years however, Haley was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers in America. Many Saddlemen recordings were not released until the 1970s and 1980s, and highlights included romantic ballads such as "Rose of My Heart" and western swing tunes such as "Yodel Your Blues Away." The original members of this group were Haley, pianist and accordion player Johnny Grande and steel guitarist Billy Williamson. Al Thompson was the group's first bass player, followed by Al Rex and Marshall Lytle. During the group's early years, it recorded under several other names, including Johnny Clifton and His String Band and Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos (although Browne, a female matinee idol of the time, did not actually appear on the record). "Rocket 88", "Rock the Joint", and their immediate follow ups were released under the increasingly incongruous Saddlemen name. It soon became apparent that a new name for the group was needed to fit the new musical style. A friend of Haley's, making note of the common mispronunciation of the name Halley's Comet to rhyme with Bailey, suggested that Haley call his band the Comets. This event is cited in the Haley biographies Sound and Glory by John Haley and John von Hoelle; Bill Haley by John Swenson; and in Still Rockin' Around the Clock, a memoir by Comets bass player Marshall Lytle. The new name for the group was adopted in the fall of 1952, before the 1953 release of "Crazy Man, Crazy" which had some elements of rock and roll and rockabilly music. Members of the group at that time were Haley, Johnny Grande, Billy Williamson and Marshall Lytle. Grande usually played piano on records but switched to accordion for live shows as it was more portable than a piano and easier to deal with during musical numbers that involved a lot of dancing around. Soon after renaming the band Haley hired his first drummer, Earl Famous. Displeased with the lineup, Haley sought out Dick Boccelli (also known as Dick Richards), who turned down the job but recommended a young drummer Charlie Higler. Soon after, Haley asked Richards again, who then accepted the role. During this time (and as late as the fall of 1955), Haley did not have a permanent lead guitar player, choosing to use session musicians on records and either playing lead guitar himself or having Williamson play steel solos. Even before the release of more successful records, the group had achieved greatness in some respects: "No one had blended country and R&B on a single before the Comets' "Rock the Joint". No one had scored an American Top 20 hit with anything that could really qualify as rock'n'roll before their single "Crazy Man Crazy" in 1953".

The band's popularity in the United States began to wane in 1956–57 as sexier, wilder acts such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard began to dominate the record charts (although Haley's cover version of Little Richard's "Rip It Up", released in direct competition with Little Richard's original recording, outsold the original). After "Skinny Minnie" hit the charts in 1958, Haley had little further success in the United States, although a spin off group made up of Comets musicians dubbed The Kingsmen (no relation to the later group of "Louie, Louie" fame) had a hit with an instrumental, "Weekend", that same year. Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be popular, touring the United Kingdom in February 1957, when Haley and his crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at Waterloo station in London at an incident which the media dubbed the "Second Battle of Waterloo". The group also toured Australia in 1957, and in 1958 enjoyed a successful (if riot dominated) tour of the European mainland. Bill Haley & His Comets were the first major American rock and roll act to tour the world in this way. Elvis, who was on military duty in Germany, visited them backstage at some shows. On a free day in Berlin they performed two songs in the Caterina Valente movie Hier Bin ich Hier Bleib Ich (Here I Am Here I Stay). Back in the U. S., Haley attempted to start his own record label, Clymax, and establish his own stable of performers, notably Sally Starr (the hostess of a Philadelphia television children's program) and the Matys Brothers. Members of the Comets were commissioned to work as session musicians on many of these recordings, many of which were written or co written by Haley and members of the Comets. The Clymax experiment only lasted about a year. In 1959, Haley's relationship with Decca collapsed; after a final set of instrumental only recordings in the fall, Haley announced he was leaving Decca for the new Warner Bros. Records label, which released two more albums in 1960, which were moderately successful. In 1960 Franny Beecher and Rudi Pompilli left the Comets to start their own record label. Replacing Beecher was a 20 year old guitarist, Johnny Kay, from Chester, Pennsylvania. Beecher later returned briefly to play with the Comets, when his record label failed to take off, sharing guitar duties with Kay. Kay left the band in 1966 but returned in the early 1970s for an aborted world tour. He appeared in the Wembley show, which was filmed and released as the London Rock and Roll Show.

In 1961–1962, 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" (#3 MEX, according to Billboard Hits Of The World 04.21.62), which was for a time the biggest selling single in Mexican history. Although Chubby Checker and Hank Ballard were credited with starting the twist craze in America, in Mexico and Latin America, Bill Haley and His Comets were proclaimed the Kings of the Twist. Thanks to the success of "Twist Español" and "Florida Twist", among others, the band had continued success in Mexico and Latin America over the next few years, selling many recordings of Spanish and Spanish flavored material and simulated live performances (overdubbed audience over studio recordings) on the Orfeon label and its subsidiary, Dimsa. They hosted a television series, Orfeon a Go Go, and made cameo appearances in several movies, lip synching some of their old hits. Haley, who was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs in the language, but most of the band's output during these years was instrumental recordings, many utilizing local session musicians playing trumpet. There was also some experimentation with Haley's style during this time; one single for Orfeon was a folk ballad, "Jimmy Martinez", which Haley recorded without the Comets. In 1966, the Comets (without Bill Haley) cut an album for Orfeon as session musicians for Big Joe Turner, who had always been an idol to Haley; no joint performance of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was recorded, however. In a 1974 interview with BBC Radio, Haley said Turner's career was in a slump at this time, so he used his then considerable influence with Orfeon to get Turner a recording session. The Comets' association with Orfeon/Dimsa ended later that year. By 1967, as related by Haley in an interview with radio host Red Robinson in that year, the group was "a free agent" without any 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", on which he was backed by a local mariachi band (similar in style to the earlier "Jimmy Martinez"), and a late 60s style rocker, "Rock on Baby", backed by a group called Superfine Dandelion. 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. 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 featuring artists of the 1950s and 1960s. 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, as Nader related in his recorded introduction to Haley's live album Bill Haley Scrapbook, which was recorded a few weeks later at the Bitter End club in New York. The band appeared in several concert films in the early 1970s, including The London Rock and Roll Show (for which Haley's 1960–66 lead guitarist, John Kay, briefly rejoined the band) and Let the Good Times Roll. After 1974, tax and management problems prevented Haley from performing in the United States, so he performed in Europe almost exclusively, though he also toured South America in 1975. The band was also kept busy in the studio, recording numerous albums for Sonet and other labels in the 1970s, several with a country music flavor. In 1974, Haley's original Decca recording of "Rock Around the Clock" hit the American sales charts once again, thanks to its use in the film American Graffiti and for two years, on the television program Happy Days. 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. 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 (see below) 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.

More than 100 musicians performed with Bill Haley & His Comets between 1952 and Haley's death in 1981, many becoming fan favorites along the way. Several short lived Comets reunions were attempted in the 1970s and 1980s, including one contingent (organized by Baltimore based piano player Joey Welz, who played piano for the Comets from 1962 to 1965) that appeared on The Tomorrow Show, and another run by an Elvis Presley impersonator, Joey Rand (this group later lost a legal action over the right to use the Comets name). Only one group was sent out to perform by Haley himself and his management and production company, consisting of musicians who had played with Haley throughout the 1960s and 1970s—lead guitarist "Nick Masters" (Mathias Nicholas Nastos), bassist Ray Cawley, singer Ray "Pudge" Parsons, and drummer Buddy Dee—and who had continued to perform as the Comets between gigs and during Haley's retirement. This group rerecorded "Rock Around the Clock" for the television series Happy Days. During a concert at the Viper Room in West Hollywood on July 6, 2005, the Comets were joined on stage for one song by Gina Haley, the youngest daughter of Bill Haley; at a similar appearance in March they were joined by Haley's eldest son, John W. Haley. The 1954–55 Comets were also joined on stage by Bill Haley Jr. during several appearances in 2005 at Bubba Mac's in Somers Point, New Jersey, and at a 2005 concert recognizing the tenure of Bill Haley and the Saddlemen at the Twin Bars in Gloucester City, New Jersey. In 2006, the 1954–55 Comets spent much of the year in residence at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri. Meanwhile, the John Lane edition of Bill Haley's Comets recorded an album in Tennessee in early 2006, which has yet to be released. On June 2, 2006, Johnny Grande, keyboardist with the 1954–55 Comets and a founding member of the band, died after a short illness. The following month, 85 year old guitarist Franny Beecher announced his retirement, though he was at one point announced as participating in an early 2007 tour of Germany. The three remaining original Comets (Lytle, Richards, and Ambrose) continued to perform in Branson with new musicians taking over the keyboard and lead guitar positions. During September 2006, PBS in the United States aired a series of programs videotaped in Branson during the spring of 2006; these shows include the last recorded performances of the complete Original Comets lineup, including Grande. Lytle died in 2013, Beecher in 2014. The last remaining members of the 1954–55 Comets, Dick Richards and Joey Ambrose, continued to perform as the Comets as of mid 2018, sometimes augmented by 1970s era Comet Bill Turner on lead guitar. John "Bam Bam" Lane died on February 18, 2007 but his edition of Bill Haley's Comets is expected to continue touring, with the 2006 recordings to be released in Lane's memory. On October 27, 2007, ex Comets guitar player Bill Turner opened the aforementioned Bill Haley Museum in Munich, Germany. He will also join the New Comets during their Remember Bill Haley Tour 2011 with Haley's daughter Gina Haley. Several bands patterning themselves after the Comets are also active in Europe, including Bill Haley's New Comets in Germany. On July 12, 2019, drummer Dick Richards died at age 95 in Ocean City, New Jersey. He was born Richard Marley Boccelli on February 12, 1924, in Yeadon, Pennsylvania. On May 24, 2020, ex Comet bassist, Albert 'Al Rex' Piccirilli, died. Al Rappa died on July 25, 2021, aged 94. Original saxophone player Joseph Frank D'Ambrosio (stage name Joey Ambrose)(March 23, 1934 – August 9, 2021), played on the hit recording of Rock Around the Clock in 1954 but from September 1955 was replaced long term by Rudy Pompilli until Rudy's death 20 years later. Joey Ambrose remained a musician and was the last Comet to expire, at 87, on August 9, 2021.