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Bill Haley shook the musical world with his songs at a time when the term rock & roll did not yet officially exist. With ”Rock Around The Clock” in 1954, he not only sang the anthem of this new style of music, but also the best-selling rock song of all time to this day. Bill Haley And His Comets were the most successful rock & roll band in the world for half a decade. He was also the first to bring this new music across the ocean to Europe, on record, on film and live. His highly anticipated two-month European tour in 1958 caused a sensation in countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Italy. The worldwide headlines about the riots and excesses almost brought the touring business with this music to a standstill for years. It was only with the Beatles, who were also Bill Haley fans, that things got better again. Even in later decades, there were hardly any concerts where hundreds of police, water cannons and tear gas bombs were used.
Despite resistance from his parents’ generation, the establishment and politicians, Bill Haley paved the way for the music that is now an integral part of pop culture. Based on Bill Haley’s European tour in 1958, the book traces in detail what life ”on the road” was like in the early years of rock music and how the post-war youth, often labelled as half-stars, tried to free themselves from the constraints of society and parents and how their awkward reactions fuelled the whole thing. In addition to hundreds of mostly unpublished photos and documents, contemporary witnesses and musicians also have their say. One chapter is extensively dedicated to the ambivalent relationship between Bill Haley and Elvis, who started out as an unnamed musician in Haley’s supporting programme, only to eventually knock him off his throne.