Remember 1955? Not quite two decades ago. But somehow it seems like centuries. Eddie had just married Debbie, Liberace was crying all the way to the bank, and Norman Vincent Peale was the hottest thing on the radio. Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Martin and Lewis and Alan Ladd were the top box office stars, and Jackie Gleason Number 1 on the tube.

The year's best selling books were Auntie Mame, Marjorie Morningstar, Bonjour Tristesse and the Man In The Grey Flannel Suit. The top of the pops were Rosemary Clooney's Hey There, Doris Day's Secret Love and Perry Como's Wanted. Broadway's biggest shows were Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Inherit The Wind, Damn Yankees, Silk Stockings and Bus Stop. Film fans were flocking to see East Of Eden, Marty, Guys And Dolls and The Wages Of Fear.

It was the era of Mickey Spillane, Snooky Lanson, the baby-boom, and monstrous chrome-covered cars. John Foster Dulles was waging Cold War with Russia, and world leaders had names like Churchill, Eisenhower, Adenauer, Malenkov, Mendes-France and St. Laurent.

And thousands of kids in greased ducktails were lining up to see a movie called The Blackboard Jungle.

It was a tough little saga of teenage rebellion, though hardly of classic calibre. But it introduced a song called Rock Around The Clock, which launched the era's most sensational musical phenomenon: rock 'n' roll. Written* and recorded by former country and western singer Bill Haley, Rock Around The Clock shot to the top of the North American pop charts and became the first record in Britain to sell more than a million copies.

Historically, Haley had the first international rock classic. And by giving teenagers the first heady taste of a music all their own, it became the Onward Christian Soldiers of the rock revolution. But while other artists - Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis - soon moved into the scene. Haley kept turning out hits: Shake Rattle And Roll, See You Later Alligator. And wherever he and his Comets went, there were riots and arrests. But rock, by the end of the 1950's, no longer belonged to the kids alone. Even Queen Elizabeth requested a showing of a Bill Haley film.

Yet while most of the other great names of 1955 are dead, ignored or forgotten, Bill Haley has just kept right on rocking around the world. Concerts throughout Asia. Europe. The US. During Britain's rock revival of 1968, Haley was greeted at London airport by hundreds of old rockers in drape-shape suits and boot-lace ties, all dying to wreck more theatres.

Last May, Bill Haley, his Comets and his kiss-curl brought a rock revival called The Glory That Was Grease to Winnipeg and Toronto. The Crystals, Roy Orbison, Dion And The Belmonts, and Chubby (King of the Twist) Checker shared the stage, and crowds of 10,000 showed up in each city. But less than half were teenagers - a few wearing pleated knee-length skirts and ponytails - who squealed because they thought they should. The rest were slightly-greying, softly-smiling adults, who cheered because they remembered.

The applause was loud, but never feverish. No seats were smashed. No riots broke out. When the house lights went on, the crowds just went home.

And when it was over, one fact remained clear. Haley himself may keep rocking round the clock till his kiss-curl turns white. But the glory that was rock 'n' roll is little more than an echo.

*Rock Around The Clock was actually written by James E. Myers and Max Freedman

The Edmonton Journal July 14th 1973

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