Bill Haley

[flemtone]

Just spent the day at work listening to a collection called "Bill Haley - From Western Swing to Rock" (Proper Records Ltd). I knew Haley from his 50's hits ('Shake, Rattle & Roll', 'Rock This Joint' and 'Rock Around the Clock'), but this collection introduced me to his early Western Swing music and it was fascinating to listen to the transition between his early and later career.

 

Just wanted to share this and recommend this collection highly. Purchased at Amazon. I give it three Phils.

 

:phil: :phil: :phil:

 

Carry on.

[rasputin1963]

At Berklee we listened to some of those early Bill Haley tracks... What our teachers wanted to point out to us was the way the musicians on the record sort of had different internal concepts of how the rhythm should go... some of the instrumentalists played with a kind of DOTTED EIGHTH + SIXTEENTH groove... (like in country-western music) whilst others played on the same record with a full-out TRIPLET SWING (like in black bebop). The idiosyncratic result is something one hears on a number of earlier 1950's rock 'n' roll records.

 

When I was in South Africa, Bill and The Comets staged a very successful tour across the country in 1981... then he died very shortly thereafter... Apparently Haley was more popular in the British world than he was Stateside, as he had been one of the first American rock 'n' roll artists to tour abroad back in the day.

[Alndln2]

Just spent the day at work listening to a collection called "Bill Haley - From Western Swing to Rock" (Proper Records Ltd). This collection introduced me to his early Western Swing music and it was fascinating to listen to the transition between his early and later career.

I remember reading about that a long time ago but never got around to checking it out. Thanks for the reminder. I did get to see him once here in the States at a revival show with Chuck Berry and others. Here's a photo I found from his C&W Swing days...

[John Sayers]

he was also famous for his kiss curl. If you check him out you'll see that one eye is different to the other and they don't track together. The kiss curl was designed to distract you from the eyes.

[Phil O'Keefe]

John, on a similar note, I heard that Roy Orbison had nystagmus (rapid eye oscillations or "twitching"), and that's why he always appeared with sunglasses. I have never been able to confirm that though...

[rasputin1963]

John, on a similar note, I heard that Roy Orbison had nystagmus (rapid eye oscillations or "twitching"), and that's why he always appeared with sunglasses. I have never been able to confirm that though...

 

 

....and I just thought he was stoned.

 

 

My dad, who grew up in a tiny country town in the valley of Texas (think: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN or THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) tells of going to little beer joints to hear Orbison perform live, in the years before he hit big.

[Tedster]

Actually, in extreme closeups, you can tell...Roy Orbison wore "Coke bottles"...he probably used the dark lenses to cover up that fact, as wearing "Coke bottles" made you about as uncool as you could get.

 

Mine are getting close to "Coke bottles" in my advanced age. I'm too old to give a rat's ass.