29: “Rock Around the Clock” is used in the movie Blackboard Jungle
In 1955 juvenile delinquency was a hot topic in the nation and in Hollywood. That was the year James Dean starred in Rebel Without a Cause. It was also the year of the movie Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford as a new teacher in an inner-city boys high school in New York determined to keep order in his classroom despite the violence of his students and the resistance of the staff. Sidney Poitier, Vic Morrow and Richard Kiley were also in Blackboard Jungle, which was a box office hit and was nominated for four Oscars.
Blackboard Jungle was also the first major studio film to use rock & roll on the soundtrack. “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets ran over the credits. The band, from Chester, PA, had been morphing from a country band called The Saddlemen to more of an R&B sound, taking their name from the celestial phenomenon at the time of Halley’s Comet.
They released the song Rock Around the Clock in 1954, it charted for one week at 23 and sold 75,000 copies. When Blackboard Jungle became a huge hit, Decca re-released it. Rock Around the Clock shot up the charts this time, spent eight weeks at No. 1, and became the second biggest worldwide-selling single after Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. The song went on to sell 45 million copies, and rock and roll was here to stay.
My friend’s mother once was at a friend’s house, hanging out in the basement. Down there, there was a drum set. When my friend’s mother went to sit behind the drum set (one of the first time’s she had ever been behind a drum set), she noticed that the front of the bass drum was turned around to show “Bill Halley and the Comets” facing her. It was the drum set of her friend’s father, the drummer from the Comets, who was inducted into the Upper Darby High School Wall of Fame (Next to Jim Croce probably), in 1999 or 2000. (I forget the year).
After an induction speech by a dancer and a mathemetician, both rather boring, this little old man walks to the podium. He stands there and doesn’t say anything at first. Then, out of no where, awakening the high school students, he bangs his hands on the podium and yells, “Are you ready to Rock and Roll?!”
I’ve been a fan of the comets ever since.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:41 amThis seems appropriate today (10/18). Today is Chuck Berry’s birthday.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:44 am