Rock around the clock professional#

As the Comets begin to play, the staid teachers are scandalized until Lisa takes to the dance floor and brings the teenage prom goers to their feet. To make a fool of Steve, Corinne books the Comets to perform at the senior prom of an exclusive girls' school in Connecticut. When Steve begins to extol the virtues of Lisa and the Comets, Corinne, who has romantic designs on Steve, becomes jealous of Lisa. Between kisses, Steve and Lisa strike a bargain and Steve goes to New York to arrange bookings with Corinne Talbot, the owner of the largest talent agency in show business. When Lisa demands that the boys receive ninety percent of their booking fees, Steve decides to soften her up through romance.

Rock around the clock professional#

When Steve proposes that they turn professional and offers to manage them, Lisa Johns, a dancer with the band, is skeptical of Steve's blandishments.

Recognizing the group's potential, Steve is amazed that they are only part-time musicians and work during the week as farmers. Curious, they follow the teens to a dance hall and witness the crowd rocking to the music of Bill Haley and His Comets. Along the way, they stop at the small town of Strawberry Springs and are surprised to find the streets bustling with teenagers on their way to a dance. Peter turned his father on to “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” and soon enough, the song was chosen to play over the opening credits of Blackboard Jungle, which is how it became a pop sensation, selling a million copies in a single month in the spring of 1955.As the popularity of big band music wanes, Steve Hollis, a manager for one of the bands, declares the business is dead and decides to drive to New York City with his friend, Corny LaSalle. That kid, Peter Ford, happened to be the son of actor Glenn Ford, who was slated to star in the upcoming teenage-delinquency drama Blackboard Jungle.

The single sold a respectable but underwhelming 75,000 copies in the coming months, and was destined to be forgotten until a 10-year-old kid in Los Angeles flipped “Thirteen Women” and fell in love with the now-famous B-side. The finished version was judged good enough to include as the B-side on “Thirteen Women,” which was released in May 1954. Later, a Decca engineer painstakingly spliced together segments from both takes-a near-miracle given the technology of 1954. In an era before multi-track recording, the only solution was to do a second take with minimal accompaniment and hope for the best. Haley and the band had time for only two takes, and in the first, they played so loud that Haley’s vocals were almost inaudible on tape. The lead guitarist brought in for the session, Danny Cedrone, had not had time to work up a new solo for the instrumental break on “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” so he repurposed one he’d used on a Haley recording two years earlier called “Rock This Joint.” Cedrone was paid $31 for his work that evening, which included performing what is still recognized as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. With time running out and no chance of extending the session, Haley and his Comets were eager to lay down the song they’d been playing live for many months to enthusiastic audience response. And if Bill Haley was not exactly the revolution’s Thomas Jefferson, it may be fair to call him its John Hancock.īill Haley put his enormous signature on rock and roll history during the final 40 minutes of a three-hour recording session in New York City-a session set up not for the recording of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” but of a song called “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town).” It took the group nearly all of their scheduled session to get a useable take of “Thirteen Women,” a song that was entirely new to them but was chosen as the A-side of their upcoming single by their new record label, Decca. On April 12, 1954- Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock.” If rock and roll was a social and cultural revolution, then “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock” was its Declaration of Independence.