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Born in 1925, Bill Haley became interested in country & western music and at a young age performed it locally. Haley and his family moved to Pennsylvania, and there, at the age of 22 Haley was married and got a job at radio station WPWA as a DJ. He formed a band called the Saddlemen in 1949, and they made records on various labels until Dave Miller offered them a deal on Holiday in 1951, and they did a rhythm & blues cover (in the sense of rock & roll) called "Rocket 88." The song became a moderate hit for the Saddlemen and they followed it up in 1952 with another rhythm & blues cover called "Rock the Joint." The group had an even bigger success with this song, and, for a change, the record was becoming a sensation with the teenagers, making it the true beginning of rock & roll. (Many writers, such as the author of "Flowers in the Dustbin" dismiss Haley as a cover artist who wasn't anything special, and he was right as far as Haley himself performing, standing there at the microphone, strumming his guitar and singing constanly, but his band was really wild for the time, and he was not "just a cover performer," he was a cover performer, but he adding a two-four beat instead of a shuffle rhythm, as he explained in a 1966 interview with Red Robinson.) Haley wrote the next hit, now the band was under the name the Comets. The song was a song that got kids marching up and down the streets from coast to coast, "Crazy Man, Crazy." It made it to the Top Ten in May of 1953. Flushed with success, Haley searched for a followup and the following singles on Dave Miller's Essex label (a label that Haley had been on since "Rock the Joint") were experiments with novelty instruments such as honking baritone sax, ratchet and cowbells, and trite nursery rhymes. Haley was now concerned that he would be thought of as a one-hit-record-act. But he was signed by Decca in 1954, and under the guidance of Milt Gabler he and the Comets recorded "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" and thanks to its use in the teenage rebel movie "The Blackboard Jungle" it became a teen sensation in 1955. The record on Decca, though, was the big hit during 1954 and the early months 1955. A rhythm & blues cover called "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was the record, and in 1955, just before starring in many rock & roll movies they recorded a million seller called "See You Later, Alligator." The teens loved Haley and the Comets until 1957 in America, but in Europe they stayed a great legend until Haley's death from "natural causes most likely heart attack" in 1981.