What was haley music a mixture of

In many ways, Haley began working towards this album as a child. Mom and dad shared a band, and, unsurprisingly, their daughter would sing before she could talk. She spent countless hours engaged in rhyming games with her mother or locked into a call-and-response as a baby with her father.

The platinum-certified Chicago-born and Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter exudes an empowering level of charisma and confidence earned by a quiet, decade-long grind. Along the way, her dynamic presence powered three solo albums— Listen Up! As a sought-after talent, she not only regularly collaborates with Post Modern Jukebox, but she also dueted with legendary star Jeff Goldblum on two tracks from the chart-topping jazz standards collection, The Capitol Studios Sessions , and joined him for an unforgettable performance on Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!

She finally found a way to incorporate a myriad of influences into her own music on Lo-Fi Soul , gluing it all together with a dash of doo-wop. It mixes two ideas together. Her gentle intonation rolls towards a bold, brassy, and boisterous refrain punctuated by rich orchestration. It goes back to this idea of feminine self-worth and fierce female mentality. By showing every side of herself, Haley welcomes a connection that will last on Lo-Fi Soul and extensive touring in and beyond.

During those years Haley was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers in America. Many Saddlemen recordings would not be released until the s and s, and highlights included romantic ballads such as "Rose of My Heart" and western swing tunes such as "Yodel Your Blues Away". The original members of this group were Haley, pianist and accordion player Johnny Grande and steel guitarist Billy Williamson.

During the group's early years, it recorded under several other names, including Johnny Clifton and His String Band, The Four Aces of Western Swing, and Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos although Browne, a female matinee idol of the time, did not actually appear on the record.

Haley began his rock and roll career with what is now recognized as a rockabilly style in a cover of " Rocket 88 " recorded for the Philadelphia -based Holiday Records label in It sold well and was followed in by a cover of a s rhythm and blues song called " Rock the Joint " this time for Holiday's sister company, Essex Records.

Slap-back bass, one identifying characteristic of rockabilly, was used on the Comets' recordings of "Rocket 88", "Rock the Joint", "Rock Around the Clock", and "Shake, Rattle, and Roll".

It soon became apparent that a new name was needed to fit the new musical style. A friend of Haley's, making note of the common alternative pronunciation of the name Halley's Comet to rhyme with Bailey , suggested that Haley call his band The Comets.

The new name was adopted in the fall of Members of the group at that time were Haley, Grande, Williamson and Lytle. Grande usually played piano on record, but switched to accordion for live shows as it was more portable than a piano and easier to deal with during musical numbers that involved a lot of dancing around. Soon after renaming the band, Haley hired his first drummer, Charlie Higler, though Higler was soon replaced by Dick Boccelli a.

Dick Richards. During this time and indeed, as late as the fall of , Haley did not have a permanent lead guitar player, choosing to use session musicians on record and either playing lead guitar himself or having Williamson play steel solos. In Haley scored his first national success with an original song called " Crazy Man, Crazy ", a phrase Haley said he heard from his teenage audience. Haley later claimed the recording sold a million copies, but this is considered an exaggeration.

Haley and His Comets then recorded " Rock Around the Clock ", Haley's biggest hit, and one of the most important records in rock and roll history.

Sales of "Rock Around the Clock" started slowly but eventually sold an estimated 25 million copies per the Guinness Book of World Records and marked the arrival of a cultural shift. Much more impressive was " Shake, Rattle and Roll ", a somewhat bowdlerized cover version of the Big Joe Turner recording. The record was one of Decca's best-selling records in Although Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" never achieved the same level of historical importance as "Rock Around the Clock", it actually predated it as the first major international rock and roll hit, although it did not attain the Number 1 position in the American charts, but became his first gold record.

When Elvis Presley recorded the song in , he combined Haley's arrangement with Turner's original lyrics but failed to score a substantial hit. Johnnie Ray had reached No. The belated success of "Rock Around the Clock" is attributed to its use in the soundtrack of the film Blackboard Jungle , [8 ] which was released in March The song, which was re-released to coincide with the film, rose to the top of the American musical charts that summer and stayed there for eight weeks, the first rock and roll record to do so.

Ambrose's acrobatic saxophone playing, along with Lytle on the double bass -literally on it, riding it like a pony, and holding it over his head- were highlights of the band's live performances during this time. Their music and their act were part of a tradition in jazz and rhythm and blues , but it all came like a thunderclap to most of their audience.

This was the earliest known theatrical rock and roll film release. Top: Bill Haley. Haley hired several new musicians to take their place: Rudy Pompilli on sax, Al Rex a former member of the Saddlemen on double bass, and Ralph Jones on drums; in addition, lead guitarist Franny Beecher , who had been a session musician for Haley since Cedrone's death in the fall of , became a full-time Comet and Haley's first performing lead guitarist.

This version of the band became more popular than the earlier manifestation, and appeared in several motion pictures over the next few years. In the group appeared in two of the earliest full-length rock and roll movies: Rock Around the Clock , and Don't Knock the Rock.

The band's popularity in the United States began to wane in —57 as sexier, wilder acts such as Elvis Presley , Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard began to dominate the record charts although Haley's cover version of Little Richard's " Rip It Up " - which was released in direct competition - actually outsold the original. After "Skinny Minnie" hit the charts in , Haley found it difficult to score further successes in the United States, although a spin-off group made up of Comets musicians dubbed The Kingsmen no relation to the later group of " Louie, Louie " fame did score a hit with the instrumental, "Weekend" that same year.

Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be popular, touring the United Kingdom in February , during which Haley and his crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at Waterloo Station in London at an incident which the media dubbed the Second Battle of Waterloo.

The group also toured Australia in , and in enjoyed a successful if riot-dominated tour of the European mainland. Elvis who was on duty in Germany visited them backstage at some shows.

Back in the U. The Clymax experiment only lasted about a year. In , Haley's relationship with Decca collapsed and after a final set of instrumental-only recordings in the fall, Haley announced he was leaving Decca for the new Warner Bros.

Records label where two more albums were released to moderate success in Haley followed up with what was, for a time, the biggest selling single in Mexican history with "Florida Twist". They hosted a television series entitled Orfeon a Go-Go and made cameo appearances in several movies, lipsynching to some of their old hits. Haley, who was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs in the language, but the vast majority of the band's output during these years were instrumental recordings, many utilizing local session musicians playing trumpet.

There was also some experimentation with Haley's style during this time; one single for Orfeon was a folk ballad, "Jimmy Martinez", which Haley recorded without the Comets. In , the Comets without Bill Haley cut an album for Orfeon as session musicians for Big Joe Turner, who had always been an idol to Haley; no joint performance of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was recorded, however.

In a interview with BBC Radio , Haley said Turner's career was in a slump at this time, so he used his then-considerable influence with Orfeon to get Turner a recording session. By , as related by Haley in an interview with radio host Red Robinson that same year, the group was "a free agent" without any recording contracts at all, although the band continued to perform regularly in North America and Europe. During this year, Haley—without the Comets—recorded a pair of demos in Phoenix, Arizona : a country-western song called " Jealous Heart " for which he was backed by a local mariachi band and similar in style to the earlier "Jimmy Martinez", and lates-style rocker called "Rock on Baby" backed by a group called Superfine Dandelion.

Neither recording would be released for 30 years. In order to revive his recording career, Haley turned to Europe. By the late s, Haley and the Comets were considered an oldies act. The band's popularity never waned in Europe, and the group signed a lucrative deal with Sonet Records of Sweden in that resulted in a new version of "Rock Around the Clock" hitting the European charts that year.

The band would record a mixture of live and studio albums for the label over the next decade. In the United States in , promoter Richard Nader launched a series of rock and roll revival concert tours featuring "oldies" acts of the 50s and 60s.

One of the first of these shows, held at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City, resulted in Haley receiving an eight-and-a-half minute standing ovation following his performance, as Nader related in his recorded introduction to Haley's live album Bill Haley's Scrapbook , which was recorded a few weeks later at New York's Bitter End club.