In 1955, bandleader Bill Haley and His Comets recorded a landmark rock and roll song, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock," which held down the Number One spot for eight weeks and went on to sell 22 million copies worldwide. In Britain, "Rock Around the Clock" has re-entered the charts seven times, most recently in 1974. If only for the impact of "Rock Around the Clock," in which Haley adapted a black R&B song to a more streamlined rock and roll beat, Haley would deserve a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet his impact in the early days of rock and roll went well beyond that. Two years earlier he'd put out "Crazy, Man, Crazy," an original song that became the first rock and roll record to make Billboard's pop chart. For most of the Fifties, Haley was a presence on the record charts with and in teen-oriented movies.
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