Rock Around the Clock-athon--fake-hit versions, and more!

(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock was copyrighted in 1953 and recorded by Bill Haley in 1954 as the B side of Thirteen Women.  It was done in two takes at the end of the session, and the version we know is a combination of those two takes (Haley's voice was allegedly drowned out by the band on the first one).   I won't go into the authorship issues, as they are complicated, and I keep forgetting the exact details.  What we mainly need to know is that Bill Haley made significant changes to the song as written.  Oh, and we need to know that RATC (my abbreviation from this point on) was only modestly successful when first released--as in, not a hit.  It became a huge hit the following year, when it was used in the soundtrack of the movie Blackboard Jungle.  Kind of ironically, RATC had a second (third?) life in 1974, when it was used as the theme music for Happy Days.

Sonny Dae and His Knights made the first recording of RATC in 1953 or 1954 (which of the two years is apparently unknown).  It seems to be a tradition to regard Dae's (Paschall Salvatore Vennitti) as lacking in every regard (to emphasize the greatness of Haley's version, I reckon), but I personally dig it--it genuinely rocks, and in an authentic R&B manner, even though the musicians were white, and the guitar solo is excellent.  Problem with the guitar-solo part is that Danny Cedrone's incredible twelve-bar break on Haley's record blows just about every other rock and roll guitar solo ever recorded off the face of the planet, so nearly any competing RATC guitar solo is going to suck by comparison.  As many of you already know, Cedrone RATC solos was a repeat of his 1952 guitar solo for Bill Haley's recording of Rock the Joint.  With the recording session nearing its end, he had no time to come up with a fresh solo, luckily for everyone.

Not so lucky was Cedrone's death from a fall ten days after he did his famous RATC solo.  He died from a broken neck and of course never learned that he'd played a major role in a record some folks regard as THE rock and roll record of all time.  (I'm fine with that, personally.  I don't think there's literally a best-ever r&r record, but if there was, RATC is a prime candidate.)  Franny Breecher, Haley's regular lead guitarist from 1954 to 1962, wasn't able to replicate Cedrone's downward chromatic slide on the RATC guitar break, so he played a modified version.  Knowing this, it's amusing to see Breecher and the rest of the band mime to the original recording on early TV appearances.

Author Jim Dawson wrote a book on RATC, and it has lots of vital info, but--and there's no nice way of saying this--Dawson's musical analysis is gibberish.  To wit, when Haley goes from A to C-sharp to E at the start of RATC, he is not modulating--he's singing an A Major triad in root position.  No modulating is happening.  And "F-minor" is a key, not a note.  Et cetera  The structure of RATC (in its published form) is simple: 1) a four-bar vamp, 2) an eight-bar verse in minor mode (F minor), then 3) the conventional twelve-bar blues in, well, twelve bars.  The song has no release/bridge.  Maybe the best example of a twelve-bar blues song with a release is Harold Arlen's Blues in the Night.

It seems that everyone, including Sonny Dae, took liberties with the song's melody and rhythms.  Dae reduced the eight-bar verse to two chords (I and V), and he starts the melody on the mediant (third note of the scale) instead of the tonic.  Haley went several steps further, changing the verse to a climb up the tonic triad, prior to changing the melody to 1-3-5 instead of 1-2-3, in terms of scale degrees.  As written, the song lends itself to a big band-ish treatment, and some of today's versions are just that, so we'll get to hear what the song would have sounded like during the reign of Glenn Miller.

I have 38 tracks for you, so no one can call me stingy.  Well, actually, anyone can, but it would be debatable in this case, I think.  The first group consists of 18 tracks, because I thought I only had 37 tracks, overall, but then I found a straggler.  Long story.  Some of the scanned images may not be the specific editions I'm featuring, but they're the same versions.  We all know by now how the budget labels worked--when they weren't re-releasing their own stuff, they were sharing tracks across different label groups.

Most of these versions follow from Haley's recording (and, in fact, the EP 4 Hits single is actually the Haley recording pirated, with a DJ-style voiceover!), but a small number (mostly) follow the song as originally written.  These as-written versions are The Living Guitars, Bill Coates, Artie Malvin, Adam Nowicki's polka version (believe it or not), Al Caiola (Tuff Guitar), the dance-class version on the Artti label (though it omits the verse), J. Lawrence Cook's piano-roll version, and the MGM Studio Orchestra.  I'm assuming that, whenever we hear the number as written, the artists are following the published music.  In some cases, the artists may even have been unfamiliar with the Haley performance (it's possible).

Then there are the quirky versions.  Or maybe I should modify that to "especially quirky."  For instance, there's the dance-class Statler label 45, on which the singer seems to be totally new to the melody, which she messes up pretty memorably.  And, not to be mean, but there's the Smoky Mountain Rangers ("Vaselino" is a stage name, but for which member, I don't know)--this has a mistimed opening and ending, and just general confusion throughout.  The steel orchestra version would be quite interesting in any event, even if it were less than well done, but it's in fact spectacular.  One step from mind-blowing.  AMRAL, btw, is a travel agency.

The comedy versions come courtesy of the late, brilliant Buddy Hackett, with his highly un-PC but (I apologize) hilarious Chinese Rock and Egg Roll, from 1956, and ripped from a ten-inch various-artists LP in my collection.  And from master musical parodist Stan Freberg, who famously despised rock and roll.  I've been told that many young rock and roll fans dug the rock hits and Stan's take-down of them, which is incredibly cool.

There are some dupes--Gabe Drake shows up, uncredited, on both the Peter Pan label (from which I rescued a fake-stereo reissue) and the Popular Extended Play Records label, but I thought it would be fun to share both.  I don't know why.  And, to include an example of label-hopping, we have the lousy version credited to both Dick Warren on Big 4 Hits (and Gateway Top Tunes) and Fred Gibson on Tops.  Of the contemporary fake versions, I've always preferred Drake's, but the Jack Richards version of Broadway does have the benefit of a guitarist who actually nails Danny Cedrone's solo, so....  Oh, and it's the Jack Richards version which is credited to the Royale Dance Orch. on Royale.  The label probably used some "famous artists from stage and TV"-type addition, too, but I failed to include it.  It's Jack Richards--that's all we need to know.

Unfortunately, the Myron Floren RATC isn't an accordion version.  I'd love to have heard what that amazing musician would have done with the song.  Likely, dazzle the listener.  But it's a big band version, and that's okay, because it's quite well done.  And you always wanted a version by the Candy-Rock Generation, whether or not you're willing to admit it.  To the, um... clock!  If there's any time left after this epic essay.









DOWNLOAD: RATC 1   RATC 2, plus images




RATC 1

The Living Guitars (Al Caiola) (Rock 'n' Roll with... LP, RCA; 1970)
Bill Coates at the Console (Maple Records 101, 45 rpm)
Artie Malvin (Themes from Hollywood Films, LP, Audition 33-5911)
Jack Richards w. Vic Corwin and His Orch. (Broadway 301, 45 rpm)
No Artist Credit (but it's Gabe Drake, of Prom) (Popular Extended Play Records, 78 rpm EP)
Dick Warren w. the Glenn Horne Sextet (Big 4 Hits 144, 45 rpm; 1955)
The Four Bells, Jimmy Carroll and His Orch. (Bell 1098, 45 rpm; 1955)
Pat Boone (Pat, Dot DLP-3050, LP; 1957)
The Chevrons (Sing-a-Long 26 Rock and Roll Hits, LP, Chevron; 1961)
Tommy Oliver and His Orch. (The Rockin' '50s, LP, Warner Bros.; 1958)
Phil Flowers (Kasey 7006, 45; 1964)
MGM Studio Orchestra, c. by Charles Wolcott (MGM K12028, 45 rpm; 1955)
Unknown Artist (Artti 104, compact 33 1/3 rpm)
Adam Nowicki and His Polka Band (Polkas from Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley, LP, Request Records)
Smoky Mountain Rangers, voc: Vaselino (LP, no label name)
Unknown Artist (EP 4 Hits, 45 rpm)
Stan Freberg--Rock Around Stephen Foster (From LP, 1955)
Myron Floren and His Orchestra (22 Dance Party Favorites, LP, Ranwood; 1982)



RATC 2

Al Caiola (Tuff Guitar, LP, United Artists, 1964)
J. Lawrence Cook (piano roll version!) (Piano Roll Rock n' Roll, LP, Mercury, 1959)
Manolo Munoz (gas G-084, 45 rpm; 1974)
Chubby Checker (Your Twist Party, LP, Parkway; 1961)
Ray Martin, Conductor (Pop Goes the Swingin' Marching Band, LP, RCA; 1958)
Papa Joe's Music Box (Same, Ranwood, 1974)
Waterford High School Wildcat Marching Band (Coronet Recording Company, 45 rpm; 1965)
Dick Parker (Stepping Tones 504, 7-inch 33/13)
The Evans Sisters w. the Sherwin Linton R&R Revival Band (Black Gold Records 7561, 45 rpm)
Frankie Carle (Era: The 50s, Dot DLP 25928; 1973)
The Candy-Rock Generation (Super Rock, boxed LP set, Columbia Music Treasury, 1969)
Gabe Drake w. the Prom Orch., Dir. Maury Laws (The Mickey Mouse March, LP, Peter Pan Records)
Royale Dance Orch. (Tops in Pops, LP, Royale 18125E)
Unknown Artist (Statler Record 933, 45 rpm)
Fred Gibson w. the Bill Allen Orch. (Tops 45-R258-49, 45rpm)
The Sound Effects (Summer '74. LP, QMO Records)
Buddy Hackett--Chinese Rock and Egg Roll (Hackett) (Fun Time, LP, Coral)
Donna Parker, Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ (Then and Now, LP)
Ray Anthony and His Bookends--Twist and Rock Around the Clock (The Twist, LP, Capitol; 1962)
AMRAL's Trinidad Cavaliers Steel Orch.  (Steel Vibrations, LP, 1973)

Lee