Often referred to as the founding father of rock 'n' roll, Bill Haley was the first performer to become famous in association with the new genre. William John Clifton Haley was born near Detroit, but raised in rural Pennsylvania. He left school in 1940, having completed the eighth grade. Coming of age during World War II, Haley was spared military service by a blind left eye. He had become interested in country and western music as a child, and during the war he began to perform on a semiprofessional basis.

Bill Haley and His Comets

By late 1943 Haley was a regular member of a country band, and for the next several years he sang, yodeled, and played rhythm guitar in bands like the Down Homers. In 1946 he struck out on his own with a group he called the Range Drifters. Like the other bands with...