Bill Haley Biography
Uploaded by Jen2314 on Nov 17, 2006
Bill Haley:
Mr. Rockin’ Rollin’
When a person brings up the term rock and roll, many things could pass through one’s mind. Someone’s immediate thought could swing to Elvis Presley, ACDC, or even Britney Spear’s version of “I Love Rock and Roll.” It all depends on how much one knows about the subject and what era of time one grew up in. According to Dictionary.com, rock and roll is “a genre of popular music originating in the 1950s; a blend of Black rhythm-and-blues with White country-and-western; rock is a generic term for the range of styles that evolved out of rock' n 'roll.” It is essentially a combination of different music that was put together and tested by many artists in the early to mid 1900’s. Billy Haley was one of the artists that introduced that new sound of music into the world.
Billy Haley, whose full name is William John Clifton Haley, was born on July 6th 1925 into a family that was musically inclined. His musical abilities were not a surprise to his mother Maude who was a classically trained pianist and to his father William who played the banjo. Throughout his life as a child, he was surrounded completely by music. BillHaley.com states that “his first performances date from about 1938, when as a child he sang and played guitar at variety shows put on by local children to raise money for local causes.” Though Bill Haley did perform in front of people, he was a shy child due to the fact that he was blind in his left eye since infancy. As a child, a handicap like this tends to leave a mark of self consciousness and concern about outer appearances. Music was a gift to Bill Haley that allowed him to grow through his self-consciousness and focus not on his partial blindness but his love for performing.
Bill Haley’s teenage years brought more opportunities to polish his act and become known by more people. He readily performed music at amusement parks and fell in love with the idea of becoming a “real, certified, singing cowboy (Gregoire, 6).” As he persistently pursued his passion through his teenage years and onto his early twenties, in 1946 he finally got a break when he joined his first professional country group known as...