title: Rock N RollWhile the exact time frame that the first strains of rock and roll music came bursting forth is nearly impossible to pinpoint, 1955 is arguably the year that it all began. On July 9 of that year, the new #1 single on the Best Sellers in Stores chart was (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets. It would have been impossible for anyone to predict the impact that song had on our culture. It was the ending of all that came before...it was the beginning of the rock era. Nothing would ever be the same again. Rock Around the Clock certainly wasn't the first rock and roll song. And Haley didn't invent the term rock and roll either. What Haley did was to bring rock and roll to the consciousness of America -- and the world. When Rock Around the Clock was played under the opening credits to the MGM release, The Blackboard Jungle, it created a sensation. There were riots in theatres. Parents and teachers were taken aback by the new defiance of America's youth. There was a rise of youth gangs,

teen-age vandalism, and juvenile delinquency. Black leather jackets and greasy ducktail haircuts became the symbols of teen rebellion. What was the cause? Who was to blame? Some claimed that Communists were subverting the youth. But others found a cause closer to home -- that new, arousing, loud, screaming music called rock and roll. There's nothing they can do to stop this new solid beat of American music from sweeping across the land in a gigantic tidal wave of happiness. -- Alan Freed