Rock and Roll

A Brief Musical History

1969: After forming a band which would be known a “TW4” a few years prior, neighbors Dennis DeYoung and brothers Chuck and John Panozzo enroll at Chicago State University. Although the band had already performed in, and around, the Chicago area, C.S.U. would become the group’s base. The trio hooks up with another student, John Curulewski, who takes over the helm on guitar.
1970: Guitarists James “JY” Young- who was performing with a rival band in Chicago-joins the quartet. The new line-up begins taking a different direction with more musical experiments, with classical/rock fusions and electronic trickeries.
1971: The band’s demo is heard by the Wooden Nickel label, who would subsequently offer the band a recording contract the following year.
1972: The band is renamed STYX after a mythological river if the dead-a decision made by the band members. STYX I is released. The single, “Best Thing” (written by DeYoung and “JY”), reaches the Top 100 on the charts by the end of the year.
1973: STYX II is released, and although it doesn’t chart immediately, the Dennis DeYoung penned ballad, “Lady”, gets considerable airplay on Chicago radio. The band concentrates on their touring efforts in support of the single’s success, and creates a vast following of fans. The band will release The Serpent Is Rising toward the end of the year.
1974: The Serpent is Rising cracks the Top 200 Albums Chart in February, followed up by Man of Miracles, which reaches even higher position in November. “Lady” would be re-released as a single with national promotion, and the song would be propelled to #6 on the U.S. charts.
1975: STYX II rockets up the charts as a result of the success of “Lady.” It would reach #20, and sell over 500,000 units. In September, after searching for a larger and more supportive label, STYX would sign with powerhouse A&M Records. Two months later, Equinox, featuring the single “Lorelei”-would be the first A&M release, immediately reaching gold status (and eventually going platinum). At the end of the year, guitarist John Curulewski would leave the band. The band’s road manager recommends 23-year-old Tommy Shaw-then guitarist for Chicago based band “MS Funk”-as a replacement. A week after auditioning, Tommy Shaw joined the band.

1977: On July 7th (7/7/77), the band released The Grand Illusion.
1978: In January, A&M Records releases the single “Come Sail Away,” which would enter the Top 10. The parent album, The Grand Illusion, hits #6 as a result of the single’s success, and eventually becomes the first album from STYX to go platinum. The singles, “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),” and “Miss America” contribute to the success of the album. Later in the year, the band would follow up with another platinum-selling album (reaching #6) titled, Pieces of Eight, featuring the hit singles, “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights),” “Renegade,” and “Sing for the Day.”
1979: A national Gallup poll would reveal that STYX is the most popular rock band with teenagers (13-19 year olds). By December, the band’s newest album release, Cornerstone, would hit #2 on the U.S. charts, earning the band it’s third consecutive platinum album. The singles, “Babe” (reaching #1 on the charts and becoming their highest-selling single of their career), “Why Me,” and “Borrowed Time” generate mass sales.
1981: Beginning early in the year, STYX would embark on an ambitious 110 date, six-month North American tour. In April, the album Paradise Theatre would be released, soon reaching platinum success (STYX would now have four consecutive platinum albums under their belt), and remaining at #1 on the U.S. charts for three weeks. Two hit singles-“The Best of Times” and “Too Much Time on My Hands”-reach #3 and #9, respectively, on the U.S. charts. The band would become the first in the history of rock ‘n’ roll to have four consecutive triple-platinum albums.
1983: STYX releases concept album, Kilroy Was Here, and will tour in support of it most of the year. A stage act is built around the album, in which costumed band members have roles and dialogue in addition to performing songs. It would become one of the most ambitious rock ‘n’ roll tours ever. The single “Mr. Roboto,” reaches #3, and becomes the second million-selling single in the band’s history (“Babe” being the first). Another single, “Don’t Let It End,” also goes Top 10.
1984: The band releases a double live album titled, Caught in the Act. Although the album is well received by the record buying public, both Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw decide to pursue solo projects (also on A&M records). Subsequently, the band is put on hold. Dennis DeYoung’s Desert Moon and Tommy Shaw’s Girls With Guns both enter top 50.
1985: In December, Tommy Shaw releases What If, which enters the Top 100, and spawns a single, “Ever Since the World Began.”
1986: Dennis DeYoung releases second solo album, Back to the World, and will also contribute a single (not from album), “This Is the Time,” to the movie, “The Karate Kid Part II.” James Young released his first solo effort, City Slicker, a collaboration with Jan Hammer.
1988: Dennis DeYoung releases another solo album, entitled Bloomchild (on MCA)
1990: Tommy Shaw forms a new band, Damn Yankees, with former Night Ranger vocalist/bassist Jack Blades, guitar virtuoso Ted Nugent, and drummer Michael Cartellone. The self-titled debut album will produce two hit singles, “High Enough” and “Coming of Age,” and will eventually sell over 2 million copies on Warner Bros. Records. The band tours extensively with Bad Company, and the album reaches #26. Toward the end of the year, STYX will reunite without Shaw (replaced by Glen Burtnik), and will release the album, Edge of the Century, which begins to garner acclaim.
1991: A single from Edge of the Century titled, “Show Me the Way,” begins chart ascension into the Top 10 during the Gulf War. With the success of the single, STYX joins an elite group of acts who have had Top 10 hits under each of the last four United States Presidents (and Top 10 hits in three different decades).
1992: Damn Yankees release their second effort, Don’t Tread, on Warner Bros. Records. The album, which features the singles “ Don’t Tread” and “Where Are You Goin’ Now?, would eventually reach platinum status. The video for the title track would be aired throughout the 1992 Olympics.
1994: In addition to playing the roll of Pontius Pilate in the national company of Jesus Christ Superstar (to rave reviews), Dennis DeYoung cuts an album of show tunes for Atlantic Records entitled 10 on Broadway.
1995: STYX release Greatest Hits: Volume 1, featuring a re-recorded version of “Lady” with Tommy Shaw (who had not yet joined the band when it was originally recorded). Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades release an album, Hallucination, as Shaw*Blades (Warner Bros. Records). The album would be co-produced by Don Gehman of REM/John Mellencamp fame. James Young forms the James Young Group, with other Chicago musicians and tours in support of their album, Raised by Wolves (Absolute/Whitehouse).
1996: In May, the classic (and most successful) line-up returns with “The Return to the Paradise Theatre” tour, which was seen in over 50 cities. Greatest Hits: Volume II was released in the summer featuring a few new songs. For the first time in thirteen years, Dennis DeYoung, James Young, Tommy Shaw, and Chuck Panozzo were “Rockin’ The Paradise.” Again…
1997: In May, CMC International Records, a division of BMG Entertainment, releases a double album of new studio tracks plus live recording of Greatest Hits from the ’96 tour, appropriately titled, Return to Paradise. Due to popular demand, STYX embarks on a 50-city North American tour in support of the release.
1998: Tommy Shaw releases a solo album in CMC, 7 Deadly Zens and hits the road opening shows for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Dennis DeYoung returns to his theatrical calling as his “Hunchback of Notre Dame” enjoys a successful run in Nashville. The band starts making plans for a new studio album-the classic line-up’s first in 16 years.
1999: The band goes in to the studio in Chicago and Los Angeles to record Brave New World which is released on June 29th. A tour begins in July, which will run through the end of the year.
2000: The band embarks on a 40 city co-headline tour with REO Speedwagon. The tour is so successful that the two bands record and release a double live album and DVD, “Arch Allies – Live at Riverport”. They then extend the tour (to date, Styx and REO have played over 90 shows together, consistently generating hugely successful box office numbers.)
2001: Styxworld Live 2001 is released, containing tracks recorded in Canada, Japan and Germany. The band continues its heavy touring schedule, playing 121 shows, including a 40 city tour with Bad Company that donates over $100,000 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Education Fund, marking the first time in history that the Rock Hall attaches its name to a tour.
2002: Styx plays over 90 shows and records a new studio album, set for release in the winter of 2003.
2003: Styx releases Cyclorama on February 18, 2003. The band tours extensively throughout the year in support of the record.

Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett has translated his easy-going Gulf Coast persona into more than just a successful recording career -- he has expanded into clothing, nightclubs, and literature. But the basis of the business empire that keeps him on the Fortune magazine list of highest-earning entertainers is his music.

Buffett was born on Christmas Day on the shores of the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Mississippi and later moved to Mobile, Alabama where he was raised. This is where he developed his early Cajun influences and appreciation for country/folk music. The Gulf Coast is also where Jimmy developed his love for the sea and sailing, largely due to the influences of his grandfather.

Jimmy attended Auburn University, and later received a B.S. in History from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969.

Jimmy's own words describe his early days:
"I got into music basically to meet girls, no doubt about it. Women have always been an influence on my music, good and bad. It looked like the greatest job in the world. I was in college at the time, a freshman at Auburn University. I was a shy, awkward kid from Mobile, kind of a wallflower. My roommate had a guitar, and even though he knew only three chords, he always seemed to be the center of attention with women. I said, 'Teach me those chords'."

So I learned the guitar and started hanging around folk clubs, watching the bands. They all had big shiny Martin guitars; I would've given my right arm for a Martin guitar. And the women -- all the time women -- were hanging around the band. I thought: this is the job for me"

Before he signed his first record contract in 1970, Jimmy worked as a writer for Billboard Magazine in Nashville, Tennessee.

He released one album for Barnaby Records, called "Down to Earth" in 1970, the single from which, a socially conscious song called, "The Christian," suggested he might be more at home protesting in Greenwich Village. Barnaby "lost" his second album, "High Cumberland Jubilee", though they would find it and release it after he became successful. Instead, he moved to Key West, FL, where he gradually evolved the beach bum character and tropical folk-rock style that would endear him to millions.

Jimmy tells the story:
"I was always a lover of the lyrical song, and I think the people who influenced me in those days typified my upbringing. I grew up in Mobile, and my relatives on my grandmother's side were a kind of Cajun, Indian, wild people from that area. My grandfather was a sailing-ship captain who migrated from Nova Scotia. So it was a gumbo type of musical experience. I'd listen to the radio from New Orleans -- Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas, and great old black New Orleans artists -- which is contrary to what most people think. They assume if you come from Alabama, you listen to country music. I didn't really like it much; all my early influences were out of New Orleans".

"I first started playing in folk clubs, and I drew on all this great Gulf Coast, New Orleans, black input. I was also listening to people like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, who were great writers above everything else. I wanted to write clever, good songs like those people".

"I was in Nashville in 1971. I'd been turned down by 26 record labels and couldn't get songs published. I had wrecked my first wife's car, and I had no alternative, I thought, but to look toward warmer climates. So I took an expired Diner's Club card, held my thumb over the expiration date, went to the TWA counter, and bought a ticket to Miami. I was supposed to have a job at a little coffee house called the Flip, the "in" place for folkies in south Florida then. At any rate, I got to Miami, and of course there was no job. I was in Florida, with no job, and I was broke. Fortunately my old friend Jerry Jeff Walker had a house there and took me in. So I lived in Coconut Grove for about 6 months and worked the folk circuit. I had always wanted to go to Key West. Watching Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo was the catalyst that sent me farther South. So we got into Jerry Jeff's '47 Packard and took the old overseas highway to Key West. We got there sometime in November; the temperature was about 85 degrees, there was a sailboat race going on, I found a bar, and the rest is history".

Signing to ABC-Dunhill Records, Buffett achieved notoriety but not much else with his second (released) album, White Sport Coat & a Pink Crustacean (1973), which featured a song called, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" ("... and screw?," goes the chorus).

Buffett revealed a more thoughtful side on "Living & Dying in 3/4 Time" (1974), with its song of marital separation "Come Monday," his first singles-chart entry.

"I was in Europe on a film documentary, shopping in a department store in London, when I heard "Come Monday" over the loudspeaker. I thought I'd better call home and see what was happening, and by that time it was #10 or so. I had to stay in Europe for three more months, yet everything had taken off in the U.S."

But it took the Top Ten song "Margaritaville" and the album in which it was featured, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" (1977), to capture Buffett's tropical worldview and, for a while, turn him into a pop star. The next release, the title track from the album, sounded so much like Margaritaville that it received little air-play and follow-ups got even less. Still, Buffett's beach bum image made fans flock to his concerts and he became a top draw.

By the start of the '80s, Buffett's yearly albums had stopped going gold, and he briefly tried the country market again. But by the middle of the decade, it was his yearly summer tours that were filling his bank account, as a steadily growing core of Sun Belt fans he dubbed "Parrotheads" made his concerts into Mardi Gras-like affairs. Buffett launched his Margaritaville line of clothes and opened the first of his Margaritaville clubs in Key West. He also turned to fiction writing, landing on the book bestseller lists. He also found time for his passion of flying, purchasing his own sea-plane and taking off in an F-14 Tomcat from the deck of an air-craft carrier.

His recording career, meanwhile, languished, though a hits compilation called "Songs you know by heart", sold millions, a 1990 live album, "Feeding Frenzy", went gold, and a 1992 box-set retrospective, "Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads", became one of the bestselling box sets ever.

Buffett finally got around to making a new album in 1994, when "Fruitcakes" became one of his fastest-selling records, reaching "platinum" status. The title track received plenty of radio air-play and the LP entered Billboard's Top 200 album chart at number 5. It was followed in 1995 by "Barometer Soup", which entered the charts at number 6 and went "gold" (with some help from The Weather Channel even), and the number 4 platinum selling "Banana Wind" in 1996, from which he got airplay with a radio single of James Taylor's "Mexico". The following year, Buffett began working on a musical adaptation of Herman Wouk's novel Don't Stop the Carnival with the author himself. After Broadway producers expressed little interest, the production ran for six weeks in Miami during 1997. In spring of 1998, Buffett released "Don't Stop The Carnival", an album based on the book and the play. He began mulling over the idea of taking the play on the road (it went to Miami and the Bahamas). He also released another book - the number one selling A Pirate Looks At Fifty.

1999 brought more successful live shows and the release of two new albums, "Beach House On the Moon" and "Buffett Live - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays", both of which went "gold".

March of 2002 saw the release of "Far Side of the World", Buffett's first studio album for his new self-run label, Mailboat Records. In mid 2003 a double-album hits compilation "Meet Me In Margaritaville" was released and his 2003 Tiki Time Tour shows were recorded and released on Mailboat. Amidst the summer tour was a number one single with Alan Jackson on "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" - Buffett's first ever number one in music. The Tiki Time Tour ended in January of 2004 in Hawaii (the live album and DVD was released through Mailboat in the fall of 2004 and was released nation wide in the spring of 2005 with the same DVD from the two shows). In December, before the Hawaii shows, he recorded a new record in Key West with a group of country stars and various well respected musicians. Originally called Conchy Tonk , (and later changed to) "License To Chill" debuted at number one on the Billboard LP chart in mid-July of 2004 - Jimmy's first ever number one album. It spun off two Top Ten videos on CMT - the Hank Williams cover of "Hey Good Lookin'" and the Buffett / Martina McBride duet "Trip Around The Sun". Jimmy was even featured in Rolling Stone - the summer of 2004 was truly Buffett's summer. Part of the Chill tour was playing Fenway Park in Boston.

Just in time for Christmas of 2004, he released another book, a continuation of the travels of Tully Mars (from Tales From Margaritaville). A Salty Piece of Land did not get to number one but it did sell very well. Its first printing run included a song called "A Salty Piece Of Land" that was a leftover from the Conchy Tonk / License To Chill sessions.

A Salty Piece Of Land 2005 Summer Tour saw Jimmy playing in football stadiums (Pittsburgh) and another baseball stadium (Wrigley in Chicago for two nights) along with the usual ampitheatres.

In February, 2006, Buffett announced that he would take the summer off from touring. "I'm kinda taking it easy now," he said in a conversation with Radio Margaritaville DJ Miles Hampton. "It's the last summer with my kids before they go off to boarding school, so I'm gonna travel with them and work the spring and the fall. I don't want to do much right now."

Buffett has also been putting in time at his Shrimp Boat Studios in Key West, Fla., recording the follow-up to 2004's "License to Chill".

Jimmy Buffett remains one of the hottest concert draws ever, playing sold out shows to legions of "Parrot Heads" where ever he goes.

Here is one of the Best Party Songs By Jimmy..

William John Clifton Haley was born in Highland Park, Michigan on July 6, 1925 to William and Maude Haley. Bill had one sister, Margaret, who was born two years earlier.

The Haleys had moved to Detroit from Firebrick, Kentucky, where William Sr. found work in a nearby service station as a mechanic while his wife gave piano lessons in their home for twenty-five cents an hour. Maude Haley, a woman of strong religious convictions, had come to America with her family from Ulverston in Lancastshire, England before the First World War. Haley's father played the banjo and mandolin and although he couldn't read music, he had an ear for country songs and was able to pick out any tune he wanted.

When Bill was seven, the family moved to Wilmington, Delaware and soon after, he was playing his own home-made cardboard guitar. At thirteen, young Bill received his first real guitar and his father taught him to play the basic chords and notes. It was at this time he began his dream of becoming a singing cowboy, like the ones he idolized every Saturday afternoon at the movie houses.

In June of 1940, just before his fifteenth birthday, Haley left school after finishing the eighth grade and went to work bottling water at Bethel Springs. This company sold pure spring water and fruit flavoured soft drinks in a three state area. Here he worked for 35 cents an hour, filling large five gallon glass bottles with spring water.

At 18 he made his first record, "Candy Kisses" and for the next four years was a guitarist and singer with several local country and western bands.

After time on the road with a group called the Downhomers, Haley returned to his parents' home in Booth's Corner in September of 1946. He was ill, disillusioned and so broke he had to walk from the train station in Marcus Hook, four miles to Booth's Corner. His only request to his mother was not to tell anyone he was home, not even his fiancé Dorothy. Bill fell into bed and slept thirty hours. Over the next two weeks, Mrs. Haley slowly nursed her son back to health.

By the age of 21, Bill felt he wasn't going to make it big as a cowboy singer and left the Downhomers to host a local radio program on WSNJ in Bridgeport, New Jersey. Shortly after, he married his childhood sweetheart, Dorothy Crowe.

Haley was hired in 1947 as musical director for radio station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he formed a singing group called The Four Aces Of Western Swing. Working twelve to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, he interviewed dozens of local people, always looking for good ideas and new talent. Each Sunday he would go to Radio Park and invite celebrities to do a special half hour program where he would interview them and ask them to sing or play their latest tunes. Haley had not completely given up his musical dreams and still found time to play in various local country and western bands.

In 1949, Haley had formed a new group called The Saddlemen and by the summer of 1950, through the efforts of Jimmy Myers, Bill Haley and his Saddlemen cut their first records. They were on Ed Wilson's Keystone label, a small Philadelphia independent publisher. The songs were standard western swing tunes: "Deal Me A Hand", " Ten Gallon Stetson" and "I'm Not To Blame".

With their new, exciting sound, the name "Saddlemen" no longer seemed appropriate and Bob Johnson, program director at WPWA, suggested a new moniker. "Ya 'know, with a name like Haley, you guys should call your group the Comets!"

Just before the Thanksgiving holidays in 1952, Haley's band changed their name and their image for the last time. Off came the cowboy boots and the white Stetsons. With some regrets and more than a little apprehension, the four young musicians turned their backs on their beloved country/western music and bravely faced an unknown future as "Bill Haley and his Comets".

The band then cut a song called "Rock The Joint", that, even with limited distribution, saw sales topping 75,000. In early 1953 Bill began further developing his formula for what was ultimately to become rock and roll. He added drums to the line up, initially hiring young drummer Charlie Higler. He was replaced in the Summer of 1953 by Dick Richards. The transformation from Western swing band was almost complete. Only one last ingredient remained to be added in the form of sax player Joey D'ambrosio.

While "Rock The Joint" had been a modest hit, their next release was to give the Comets their first taste of stardom. "Crazy, Man, Crazy", was a tune written by Haley and Marshall Lytle, while sitting at Bill's kitchen table. The lyric was purportedly based on a phrase Bill picked up while performing on one of his numerous high school shows.

On a personal level, the pressures of touring began to take their toll on Bill's marriage, ultimately leading to his divorce from Dorothy. He was shortly afterwards to marry a pretty young blonde girl, Barbara Joan Cupchack.

"Crazy, Man, Crazy" shot into the U.S. Top 20 and became the first rock and roll record to make the Billboard pop chart, reaching the Top 20. Newspapers ran stories which gave the impression that Bill's story was one of overnight success, conveniently forgetting it was the culmination of many years hard work.

On April 1st, 1954, Jimmy Myers, Milt Gabler and Bill Haley met in Decca's New York offices. The three men discussed a contract for four records a year, a standard royalty of 5% of sales, $5,000.00 in advance royalties, and the understanding that Decca would mail out each release to two thousand disc-jockeys with full support publicity, plus full page ads in Billboard and Cash Box magazines! With the deal set and signed, the three men shook hands and agreed on a recording date four days after their current contract with Essex Records was due to expire.

When the recording sessions started, Milt Gabler, who was an experienced producer, having previously recorded The Inkspots, Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald, convinced Haley to change his sound. That change would be evident when on April 12th 1954, at Pythian Temple Studio with the recording of a song called "Rock Around the Clock", originally recorded by Sunny Dae in 1952. The record was released and had initial sales topping 75,000 copies.

In the spring of 1955, MGM completed a film called The Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford as a high school teacher confronted by violent students. "Rock Around The Clock" was featured during the opening credits and reaction to it was so strong, the record was re-released as a single. This time it shot to the top of the US charts and became an international sensation, eventually selling over 25 million copies. The Rock and Roll era had begun.

The follow up to 'Clock' was "Shake, Rattle & Roll". The song had originally been a hit for Joe Turner, but while Turner's version has a blues feel to it, Haley's version is most definitely rock & roll. The disc soared into the US Top Ten and sold well over a million copies. The band's next two releases "Dim, Dim The Lights" and "Mambo Rock" couldn't match their earlier success, but did make it onto the R&B charts. More songs of this new style followed, but again, none could crack Billboard's Top 100.

Then late in 1955, Joey d'Ambrosio, Dick Richards and Marshall Lytle left the Comets after a dispute with Bill over money. They formed the Jodimars (a name derived from their respective names, JOey, DIck & MARShall). Capitol records immediately signed them, but unfortunately, success eluded them.

The next stage in the development of the Comets was crucial. Bill needed musicians in a hurry to fulfil his live bookings. Al Rex rejoined to play bass. Frank Beecher, who had been featured on the band's recent recordings, played lead guitar. Finally, they were joined by one of the most enduring members of the Comets, Rudy Pompilli on tenor saxophone. In the coming years, audiences throughout the world would marvel at the antics of Rudy, belting out his sax solos, arching his back until he was virtually lying flat on the floor, and Al throwing his bass up into the air, then jumping onto its side while still playing. This was truly the very first integrated rock & roll band. Bill was more than happy to share the spotlight with his very talented musicians. Rudy's show stopping solo, "Rudy's Rock" and Frank Beecher's "Guitar Boogie" being examples in point.

The next really big hit came with "See You Later Alligator". A version of the song had already been released by Bobby Charles on the Chess label and Milt Gabler needed to get Bill into the studio quickly to record it. This was the only song the band cut at the main Decca studios and they literally had to break into the place on a Sunday to cut the record, as Gabler forgot the keys to his office.

'Alligator' sold a million copies within a month of release and was the first Comets' record to feature Ralph Jones on drums. He would now replace Gussack on the remaining Decca recordings.

The next big project on the horizon was the bands feature film 'Don't Knock The Rock'. As well as performing the title track, Bill and the band performed an excellent version of "Rip It Up", a song that they would feature in their live shows for the next 20 years.

In an attempt to be original, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded an album of old standards set to a rock beat. The album failed miserably. They then tried an all instrumental album. It also flopped.

In 1957, Haley decided to tour Britain as his popularity began fading at home. The first American Rock and Roll star to come to Britain, he was met with large and enthusiastic crowds, but the British soon found out what American teenagers already knew. Haley, with his spit curl, was old (30), overweight and rather mechanical when compared to Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and Elvis, who were younger and whose music was more exciting. Bill Haley & His Comets were the first, but now they were part of "the establishment".

1958 saw the band reach #22 in the U.S. with "Skinny Minnie" and #35 with "Week End". After that, they recorded a few minor hits and many more that didn't even make the charts. Bill Haley spent the remainder of his life touring and playing Rock and Roll Revival shows, although "Rock Around The Clock" made a surprise return to the Top 40 after it was used as the original theme song for the TV show Happy Days.

By the 1970s, Bill had fallen victim to alcoholism and increasing paranoia. In the early morning hours of February 9th, 1981, Bill called two of his sons, Scott and Jack and had his last known conversations. He died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack about 6:30 that morning at his home in Harlingen, Texas. Haley was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Some of the original band returned to the limelight in 1987, when the Philadelphia Academy of Music put together a tribute to local-boy-made-good, Dick Clark. A long list of Philadelphia music heavies were invited to contribute, including Frankie Avalon, Buddy Greco, Patti LaBelle and the Comets. The show's producers tracked down D'Ambrosio in Las Vegas, where he was working as a casino card dealer and appearing regularly with area jazz bands.

After the performance, the players met a booking agent who told them of their continuing popularity in Europe. In D'Ambrosio's words, "We didn't know any of that. The guy says, 'Would you like to play in Europe?' and we said, 'Geez, that'd be great.'"

The reunited Comets' first European appearance, at an outdoor festival in England, convinced the musicians that they were on to something. "The people went wild, big-time," D'Ambrosio says. "it was so exciting that we thought we ought to do this more often." The Comets then toured Europe for up to two months a year, playing to sold-out crowds in England, Germany, France and many other countries.

In retrospect, "Rock Around The Clock" wasn't the first Rock and Roll song, but it is one of the most significant. Although no one knew it at the time, the record became a musical dividing line, separating everything that came before it from everything that came after and ensured Bill Haley and His Comets a place of honour in Rock and Roll history.