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 Haley was born '''William John Clifton Haley''' (some sources append "Junior" to his name, but his eldest son states that this is erroneous) in [[Highland Park (Detroit), Michigan]] and was raised in [[Pennsylvania]].  Many sources (almost universally predating 1981) state that Haley was born in [[1927]], which is due to Haley knocking two years off his age for publicity purposes in the 1950s. A few recent sources erroneously give a birth year of [[1924]].
 
In [[1946]], Haley joined his first professional group, a [[western swing]] band called The [[Down Homers]] whose boss was Shorty Cook, after which he set out on his own. He made a number of unsuccessful country music [[Single (music)|single]]s in the [[1940s]] for several labels, including [[Cowboy Records]] [[1948]]-[[1949]] while working as a touring musician and later a radio [[DJ]] at WPWA's. (Many of Haley's early recordings would not be released until after his death.) In 1950, he formed is own group, '''The Saddlemen''' and in [[1951]] began to change musical styles, recording [[cover version]]s of "[[Rocket "88"]]" (previously recorded by [[Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats ]] which was released by Chess in Chicago the same year, Illinois featuring [[Ike Turner]] on lead guitar and "Rock this Joint", previously recorded by several bands including [[Jimmy Preston and His Prestonians]]. The relative success of the latter of these convinced Haley that his new and as-yet unnamed hybrid of country and [[rhythm and blues]] could be a commercial success. There's something goin' on ("snake in the grass"): Bill haley is building a music based on western swing, hillbilly and tex-mex which is called at that time "Cow-Boy-Jive".
 
 ==Bill Haley & His Comets==
 
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 Haley was born '''William John Clifton Haley''' (some sources append "Junior" to his name, but his eldest son states that this is erroneous) in [[Highland Park (Detroit), Michigan]] and was raised in [[Pennsylvania]].  Many sources (almost universally predating 1981) state that Haley was born in [[1927]], which is due to Haley knocking two years off his age for publicity purposes in the 1950s. A few recent sources erroneously give a birth year of [[1924]].
 
In [[1946]], Haley joined his first professional group, a [[western swing]] band called The [[Down Homers]] whose boss was Shorty Cook, after which he set out on his own. He made a number of unsuccessful country music [[Single (music)|single]]s in the [[1940s]] for several labels, including [[Cowboy Records]] [[1948]]-[[1949]] while working as a touring musician and later a radio [[DJ]] at WPWA's. (Many of Haley's early recordings would not be released until after his death.) In 1950, he formed is own group, '''The Saddlemen''' and in [[1951]] began to change musical styles, recording [[cover version]]s of "[[Rocket "88"]]" (previously recorded by [[Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats ]] which was released by Chess in Chicago the same year, Illinois featuring [[Ike Turner]] on lead guitar and "Rock this Joint", previously recorded by several bands including [[Jimmy Preston and His Prestonians]]. The relative success of the latter of these convinced Haley that his new and as-yet unnamed hybrid of country and [[rhythm and blues]] could be a commercial success. There's something goin' on ("snake in the grass"): Bill haley is building a music based on western swing, hillbilly, jive, bop, dixieland, jazz, rhythm'n'blues and tex-mex which is called at that time "Cow-Boy-Jive".
 
 ==Bill Haley & His Comets==
 
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