Bill Haley

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William John Clifton "Bill" Haley (/ˈheɪliː/; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-selling hits such as "Rock Around the Clock", "See You Later, Alligator", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Rocket 88", "Skinny Minnie", and "Razzle Dazzle". He has sold over 25 million records worldwide.

Biography

Early life and career

Bill Haley was born July 6, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan, as William John Clifton Haley. In 1929 the four-year-old Haley underwent an inner-ear mastoid operation which accidentally severed an optic nerve, leaving him blind in his left eye for the rest of his life. As a result of the effects of the Great Depression on the Detroit area, his father moved the family to Boothwyn, near Chester, Pennsylvania, when Bill was seven years old. Haley's father William Albert Haley was from Kentucky and played the banjo and mandolin, and his mother, Maude Green, who was originally from Ulverston in Cumbria, England, was a technically accomplished keyboardist with classical training. Haley told the story that when he made a simulated guitar out of cardboard, his parents bought him a real one.

Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band, also known by the names Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets (and variations thereof), was the earliest group of white musicians to bring rock and roll to the attention of white America and the rest of the world. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group placed nine singles in the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten.

Bandleader Bill Haley had previously been a country music performer; after recording a country and western-styled version of "Rocket 88", a rhythm and blues song, he changed musical direction to a new sound which came to be called rock and roll.

Although several members of the Comets became famous, Bill Haley remained the star. With his spit curl and the band's matching plaid dinner jackets and energetic stage behavior, many fans consider them to be as revolutionary in their time as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were a decade later.

Razzle Dazzle

Razzle Dazzle (sometimes spelled Rzl Dzl) was the title of a Canadian children's program produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation between October 2, 1961 and July 1, 1966.

The series was initially co-hosted by Alan Hamel and Michele Finney who were later replaced by Ray Bellew and Trudy Young. There was also a cast of characters who appeared in every episode, most notably the puppet Howard the Turtle (John Keogh), who was considered the star of the show.

Howard the Turtle would tell jokes which he called "Groaners". Another highlight of the show was the secret decoder wheel which kids could send in to receive. At the end of each show a secret message was shown on the TV screen. Only those at home with a decoder wheel could decipher the message. Other recurring characters on the show included Percy Q. Kidpester (drawn by George Feyer) and Mr. Sharpey (Paul Kligman) who was known for saying "A knuckle full of nickels". "Spots and Stripes" was often a feature on the show, where groups of kids competed against each other.