While do-gooders shout that he’s fulfilling sex urges with his R & R cult, Bill insists he just provides fun for the youngsters.
Recreated from an article by Leonard Bennett in Cabaret Magazine No 5 from 1956
Bille Haley beats out a tune on his guitar while his saxophonist curls on the floor to blow at on of his rock’n’roll concerts.
WHAT "23 skiddoo" and "Oh you kid" were to the roaring 20’s, such expressions as "See you later, alligator" and" After a while, crocodile" have become to the frantic 50’s. They are a product of the rock ‘n’ roll era, a mad, boisterous, wild binge of erotic music that has the younger generation bouncing about in delirium shouting hosannahs for the high priest of the cult, a cool, calculated gent named Bill Haley who is bound to make 8 cool, calculated million before the rock ‘n’ roll craze dies.
There are those who believe rock ‘n’ roll is some kind of new phenomenon that is responsible for all the juvenile delinquents in the land. They are claiming that the 2 R’s are replacing the 3 R’s for teenagers.
Another crowd sees in rock en’ roll the sinister hand of what they call the "integrationists," people who want to end the color line in the South. And in some parts of Dixie, pickets have actually patrolled outside halls where rock en’ roll has been played.
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Varied reactions of girl fans to R & R is seen in these two girls, on almost about to cry and the other laughing hystericlly in respons to Bill Haleys hot tunes.
But the sane, sober musicologists who follow the history of rhythm slate very simply that rock ‘n’ roll is no more and no less than what it sounds like-good music. Actually its ancestry goes back through varying schools of jazz beginning with Dixieland and tracing its way through swing, bebop and cool. If anything, rock ‘n’ roll is basically a graduate school of swing with the same fundamental beat and even Bill Haley might admit that in private.
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