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by Otto Fuchs (Author)
The greatest accomplishment of Bill Haley & His Comets lies in their paving the way for all the other artists that followed. From 1952 until 1960, Bill Haley & His Comets scored 30 hits in the US and UK charts. In 1957, at the beginning of Bill Haley's first UK tour, he was greeted by 4,000 fans at London's Waterloo train station. The following year, his 1958 European tour included appearances in Germany, (which began approximately three weeks after Elvis Presley was shipped there, courtesy of Uncle Sam) and caught the attention of the international press. The Haley concerts held at the West Berlin Sportspalace erupted in mass rioting and became a daily news item. The East German newspaper "Neues Deutschland" condemned him as "the rock & roll gangster, Haley celebrating an orgy of American un-culture. "The West German periodical "Rheinische Merkur" reported: "he, of all people, the Comet of instinct-unchaining started a major offensive against taste, standing and self-respect. All that in the bishopric of Essen on the day of the Papacy vote". The Soviet paper "Pravda" declared him, along with rock & roll, as "a secret weapon of the west against socialism", whereas the FBI under the infamous J. Edgar Hoover (best known for his wiretapping of anyone whom he viewed as "suspicious") started an investigation into theories and accusations of what was feared and suspected as "communist music". Asa Carter, head of the "Alabama White Citizens Committee", charged the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with seducing and corrupting white teenage girls by promoting rock & roll. He is quoted as saying in 1956, "with its basic heavy beat of the Negroes, it appeals to the base in man; it brings out animalism and vulgarity". He then promised to initiate a "...campaign to force radio stations and jukebox owners to boycott this immoral music". Perhaps the culmination of all this hysteria, however, was the opinion published as the headline of the prestigio
