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Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band, founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets (and variations thereof). 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. The single "Rock Around the Clock" became the biggest selling rock and roll single in the history of the genre and retained that position for some years
Bandleader Bill Haley had previously been a country music performer; after recording a country and western-styled version of Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats "Rocket 88", a rhythm and blues song, he changed musical direction to a new sound which came to be called rock and roll.
Though the group was considered to be at the forefront of rock and roll during the genre's formative years, the arrival of more risqué acts such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard by 1956 led the more clean-cut Haley and his Comets to decline in popularity. Haley would remain popular in Europe and go on to have a comeback as a nostalgia act in the 1970s, along with many of his contemporaries.
Following Haley's death, no fewer than seven different groups have existed under the Comets name, all claiming (with varying degrees of authority) to be the continuation of Haley's group. As of the end of 2014, four such groups were still performing in the United States and internationally.
Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around The Clock T1
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