YEAR
2012
INDUCTED BY
Smokey Robinson
CATEGORY
Performers
The Comets played the soundtrack of the rock and roll revolution.
They became rock’s poster children with the release of their rollicking record “Rock Around the Clock.” Some people credit them with the first rock and roll record ever.
Al Rex
Billy Williamson
Danny Cedrone
Dick Richards
Fran Beecher
Joey Ambrose
Johnny Grande
Marshall Lytle
Ralph Jones
Rudy Pompilli
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Robert Burke Warren
Bill Haley needed a lot of musical oomph to get from second-string singing cowboy to one of the first rock & roll stars in history. A huge portion of that power came from the appropriately named Comets.
Marshall Lytle, stand-up bassist and songwriter (he co-wrote Haleys first hit, “Crazy Man, Crazy”), had been in Haley’s C&W group, Bill Haley and the Saddlemen. The multitalented Haley actually taught Lytle—initially a guitarist—the basics of percussive slap bass, which Lytle soon mastered.
