So you have to give a little bit sometimes to get your songs recorded.'Īt the time, Bill Haley & The Comets were recording on the Essex label. I mean, we have records out that has `written by Bill Haley and Milt Gabler.' Well, Milt Gabler never wrote songs, but he was the A&R man. And a lot of times a writer has songs and you'll have to give up a little bit if you want it published or you want it recorded. He thinks that the relationship between Myers and Freedman was similar to many others in the music industry. Can I work with you on it?' And I says, `How would you know? You're tone deaf.' He says, `No, I hear it there,' and he says, `I'd like to work with you if you'll let me.' I says, `OK.' So the two of us, over a period of time-none of us was in a hurry-involved with 'Rock Around the Clock.''Ĭomets keyboardist John Garande remembers it differently. So Max walked into my office one day and he said, `That sounds good, Jim. Anybody can put `one, two, three o'clock, rock,' but they couldn't put all of the lyrics. And I finally got it down on paper, playing the piano one finger at a time, and worked with the lyrics. 'The melody was in my head for a long, long time. The record label lists two names, pop lyricist Max Freedman and Jimmy DeKnight, the pseudonym of music publisher and promoter James Myers. The true author of 'Rock Around the Clock' is still being disputed. And guitarist Danny Cedrone played one of the earliest and most famous solos in rock history. Looks aside, Bill Haley & The Comets created what was arguably the first recognizable fusion of rhythm and blues with country and western swing that became rock 'n' roll. And behind him, a bunch of guys dressed just like him wail on their instruments, including a big upright string bass and an accordion. In old film clips from the 1950s, the chubby-cheeked singer dressed in a gray suit and tie sways with an acoustic guitar in his hands and a big spit curl bouncing on his forehead. William John Clifton Haley never fit the image of a rock star. I always used to be known as Silver Yodeling Bill.' And then in those days, Red, I was a yodeler, a Swiss yodeler. 'And I had been trying very hard, as most young fellows do, to get started in show business, and doing amateur contests and what have you. 'Well, the beginning for Bill Haley-let's really go back now-is 1947, 1946 to be exact,' Haley himself told NPR. 'Rock the Joint' and 'Thirteen Women' by Bill Haley and the Comets Recordings Used: 'Rock Around the Clock', first as recorded by Sonny Dae and the Knights, then as rendered by Bill Haley and the Comets Interviewees: James Meyers, publisher & promoter Title: (We're Gonna) Rock Around the ClockĪrtist: words/music Max Freedman, James Myers aka Jimmy de Knight

Round the clock meaning