10 Songs That Changed Music Forever
9. Bill Haley And His Comets - Rock Around The Clock (1955)
‘Rock Around The Clock’ is one of the many songs that attempts to lay claim to being the first rock n’ roll record.
In truth, that’s an accolade that should belong to half a dozen records by African American artists in the 1940s and 1950s, through the advent of swing music from rhythm and blues. Artists like Roy Brown, Wild Bill Moore and Jimmy Preston were instrumental in laying down the basis for rock n’ roll.
But it’s a sad fact of history that in the fifties white audiences were happy to dance to black music, but would only make a mainstream hit out of a white band. Ike Turner’s groundbreaking ‘Rocket ‘88’ and its peers hit big on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart, but ‘Rock Around The Clock was the first rock n’ roll record to reach number one on the mainstream pop singles charts, staying there for eight weeks.
It was the song’s second release - it had been a b-side before being selected as the opening number on 1955’s hit movie The Blackboard Jungle. Originally recorded in a hurry, that seminal guitar solo had been lifted from a previous Haley recording, ‘Rock This Joint’, and a more sonically impressive version of the song had to be spliced together for the re-release.
The US success of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ was replicated worldwide. The song sold millions and catapulted Haley and his band to stardom… but it also helped push rock n’ roll to the forefront of popular music.