If the first eight years of Bill Haley’s career indeed mark The Real Birth Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, it was clearly one of the longer pregnancies in musical history.
Bear Family, whose previous Haley box sets covered his classic Decca era and later Warner Bros. period, completes the picture with this five-disc collection. Such comprehensive collections often challenge conventional wisdom. This one, for example, dispels any notions Haley evolved toward rock all along.
Dozens of 1946-1950 studio recordings and radio airchecks, beginning with a 1946 aircheck of Haley yodeling with the mediocre midwest-based Down Homers, reveal him utterly ordinary, his voice no more beguiling than countless other singers in eastern or midwestern country show bands. Stagnation reigned after he returned to his original home base around Philadelphia in 1947. Haley and his bands the Four Aces Of Western Swing, and the Saddlemen loved playing covers by Bob Wills, Hank Williams and Red Foley, but upbeat fare by those acts in that era rocked more than Haley’s ham-fisted efforts.
Change came abruptly after he and the Saddlemen began playing sets of R&B covers he called “Cowboy Jive” in Philly and Jersey clubs. Their fall 1950 Atlantic sessions were far more focused, yielding the competent, swinging “I’m Gonna Dry Every Tear With A Kiss” and an unreleased cover of Ruth Brown’s R&B hit “Teardrops From My Eyes”. It wasn’t long until his zestful 1951 cover of Jackie Brenston’s R&B hit “Rocket ’88′” appeared on Dave Miller’s Philly-based Holiday Records. Similar fare including “Green Tree Boogie” and “Rockin’ Chair On The Moon” swept away the remaining cowboy trappings.
Haley upped the ante by covering Jimmy Preston’s 1949 R&B favorite “Rock The Joint”, but the joyous abandon of his first national hit, 1953′s “Crazy, Man, Crazy”, established a beachhead on the then-syrupy pop charts. Chris Gardner’s excellent research reveals that Haley, when playing Jersey Shore clubs, also cribbed ideas from legendary R&B showmen the Treniers when they were in town. The music proves it: 1953′s “Live It Up!” is pure Claude Trenier.
Bear Family’s comprehensiveness is, as usual, a two-edged sword. The hardback book is amazing and except for a few rare, worn discs, the remastered sound is breathtaking, though many performances are inexplicably out of chronological sequence. It’s debatable whether Haley truly heralded the birth of rock since others came closer to it sooner, but this collection reveals his full journey.
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