Though recorded in 1954, "Rock Around the Clock" surged toward the top of the charts in the summer of 1955 after its use in the film "Blackboard Jungle," becoming widely regarded as the song that brought rock and roll into the American cultural mainstream. It would go on to sell more than 25 million copies worldwide.
Bill Haley recorded "Rock Around the Clock" almost as an afterthought in a rushed session in April 1954, and the single initially sold modestly. Its fortunes changed dramatically when director Richard Brooks used it over the opening credits of "Blackboard Jungle," a gritty film about juvenile delinquency in an inner-city high school.
Teenage audiences reacted with an intensity theater owners hadn't anticipated — kids danced in the aisles, slashed seats, and in some cities, riots broke out. The controversy only fueled the song's popularity, and it soon topped the Billboard chart for eight consecutive weeks.
Haley himself, a former country-and-western singer in his late twenties with a spit-curl hairstyle, seemed an unlikely rock idol, but the song's driving backbeat and lyrics about all-night dancing crystallized a new youth culture. It's often cited, alongside Elvis Presley's early Sun Records sides, as the moment rock and roll crossed from rhythm-and-blues radio into the white American mainstream, alarming parents and clergy in roughly equal measure.
Key people: Bill Haley