![]() It was a double rim shot heard round the world, followed by Haley's famous count off, "One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock," and it very nearly faded into obscurity.Īs the B-side of "Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)," the song, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock," first charted in early 1954. While Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis dreamed big in 1951, prototype rock bands led by Haley charted hits. Yet, of all the myths and maybes surrounding Haley, one detail rings true: Bill Haley & His Comets were the first rock & roll band. He had a legit claim, too, having recorded the genre's first bona fide anthem, "Rock Around the Clock." The other firsts he deserves credit for have been marginalized along with his memory. Worse, Haley bought into the pointless argument of who invented rock & roll, believing he deserved the title. The man who cut the first rock & roll single to top the Billboard charts and sell a million records wasn't even inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's inaugural class five years later. Unlike Best, Haley did taste success, yet he died in South Texas – Harlingen – haunted, embittered, and neglected. That's impossible, of course, since Haley died on February 9, 1981, seven months before the Austin Chronicle's debut issue. What's it like to stand within a hair's breadth of unimaginable success, completely shadowed by circumstance? Murky reasons given for his exit from the Beatles became a poignant reality while watching him work the crowd of a couple hundred. In Austin, after the show, he conducted a congenial meet and greet, posing for pictures with fans and signing posters. He had mastered his craft in Hamburg with the leather-wearing rockers by the time he was fired on the cusp of the group's meteoric ascent. The Liverpudlians' initial backbeat, 1960-62, he'd been a handsome devil as a young man and remained fit for the 45 years that followed, playing songs he'd performed and recorded with the band. You of a certain age remember the drummer – the Beatle who wasn't John, Paul, George, or Ringo. In 2007, Pete Best performed Downtown on the outdoor stage of Threadgill's World Headquarters.
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