Bill Rocks

Once again from the Bear Family a great product every track a gem.

Best sound yet available and excellent tracks

Wonderful cd!

Bear Family Records has done more than any other recording organization in history to secure and present Bill Haley's legacy to the public, in an idealized and optimized form, and I personally own all of their box sets devoted to the late, great rock 'n' roll pioneer and legend. And they're all worthwhile, containing as they do about 98% of Haley's combined output from the 1940s up through the mid-1960s -- the only major sides missing that immediately come to mind are his recordings done in Mexico for the Orfeon label, and his Nashville sessions from the early 1970s. But they're also damned expensive, and probably out-of-reach of a lot of Haley's fans. This single CD, running 79 minutes, is the perfect solution, distilling down almost all of Haley's best sides released between 1951 (!) and 1958 into a near-perfect best-of (the only thing missing is "Thirteen Women"); yes, Haley was playing what later came to be called rock 'n' roll that far back, and he had a lot more to offer than "Rock Around The Clock" and "Shake, Rattle & Roll." The sound is first-rate and the programming is killer, the booklet maintains the usual high standard of Bear Family annotation and photographic selection, and the whole release is a great overview of the breadth of Haley's career. (One only wishes that, at some point, there'd be a follow-up distilling down Haley's best sides of the 1960s). I own it all in the box sets, but I'm more than happy to get this disc, too!

Bill Haley, of course, sounded the clarion call for R&R when his modest 1954 Hit, (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock (# 23 Pop that June) was resurrected a year later and used over the opening credits of the film The Blackboard Jungle in 1955. On its re-release by Decca it soared to # 1 Billboard Pop Top 100 and # 3 R&B in July, again with Thirteen Women (And Only One Man In Town) on the flipside. But long before that launched him and his band into the forefront of the birth of R&R, Bill, who started out as a member of a "Country & Western Swing" band known as The Down Homers, based in Pennsylvania, formed groups called The Range Drifters and then The Four Aces Of Western Swing in the late 1940s. That last gathering landed a recording contract with Cowboy Records, founded in Philadelphia back in 1942 by songwriter Buddy DeSylva and vocalist Johnny Mercer (who would later form Capitol Records), and in late summer 1948, Four Leaf Clover b/w Too Many Parties And Too Many Pals was released on Cowboy CR-1201, followed in March 1949 by Candy Kisses b/w Tennessee Border on Cowboy CR-1202. Both did modestly well on a regional basis. So too did Stand Up And Be Counted b/w Loveless Blues, leased to Central Records in 1949 (Center 102) and, in 1950, the leased sides Deal Me A Hand b/w Ten Gallon Stetson and Susan Van Dusen b/w I'm Not To Blame (Keystone 5101 and 5102 respectively), and I'm Gonna Dry Every Tear With A Kiss b/w Why Do I Cry Over You? (Atlantic 721). Late that year, My Sweet Little Girl From Nevada b/w My Palomino And I was released on Cowboy CR-1701. His focus then changed dramatically when he switched to Dave Miller's Holiday Records in Philadelphia in 1951, first changing the name of his group to The Saddlemen due to the sudden appearance of a very successful Pop quartet calling themselves The Four Aces, and then by covering Rocket "88" which was a smash # 1 R&B hit for Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats. Although it never made any national charts, b/w Tearstains On My Heart on Hollywood 105, it did attract a regional following. This was followed that year by Green Tree Boogie b/w Deep In My Heart on Holiday 108, Pretty Baby b/w I'm Crying on Holiday 110, and A Year Ago This Christmas b/w I Don't Want To Be Alone For Christmas on Holiday 113. These were a mix of his old C&W sound and the new, emerging jump which was dominating the R&B listings, but by 1952 he had zeroed in on the style and sound that would carry him right through to his last original hit in 1960. After the rocking Sundown Boogie b/w Juke Box Cannon Ball came out on Holiday 113, Miller switched their releases to his Essex label with Rock The Joint b/w Icy Heart (Essex 303), followed by Rocking Chair On The Moon b/w Dance With A Dolly With A Hole In Her Stocking (Essex 305), Real Rock Drive b/w Stop Beatin' `Round The Mulberry Bush (Essex 310), and the one that launched him onto the national charts, Crazy, Man, Crazy, which made it to # 12 Pop in June 1953 b/w What'cha Gonna Do? Two more Essex hits would follow, Fractured, # 24 in August 1953 b/w Pat-A-Cake on Essex 327, and Live It Up, # 25 that October b/w Farewell, So Long, Goodbye on Essex 332, before he and the band wound up at Decca. And the rest, as they, was history, some of it detailed in the wonderful liner notes. This is now one of the very best Bill Haley compilations on the market. This volume forms part of Bear Family of Germany's massive series "Rock" or "Rocks" which, with upwards of 41 volumes covering a wide range of artists of the `50s and `60s in all genres - Country/Rockabilly, R&R, Pop, Blues, R&B (see Comments below) - could have become one of the best ever produced in the annals of Oldies music, with each volume's large detailed-laden booklets of upwards of 40 pages and quality packaging and sound reproduction matched only by Ace of London. But although this isn't one of them, since it sets out to offer a mix of Bill's early material with some of his better-known hit singles (of which he had 31, here and there throughout the series they leave out far too much in terms of hits and their B-sides, failing to realize that potential buyers include both those just seeking a cross-variety of an artist's offerings AND collectors of hit singles like myself. In taking that inconsistency approach they are severely limiting their potential sales and in that regard do not stack up against Ace.