In 1955 "Rock Around the Clock" became the first worldwide hit of a new style of music called Rock and Roll.
Bill Haley's band The Comets included Johnny Grande on piano. However, when playing live Johnny preferred the accordion !
Link: Johnny Grande on Wikipedia
Link: A biography of Johnny Grande
If anybody has recordings of Johnny Grande (pronounced "Gran-dee"/Pennsylvania-Italian I believe) please get ahold of us. We'd love to play him on our Accordion Noir radio show.
Bruce
www.AccordionNoir.org
Posted by: Bruce Triggs | December 23, 2007 at 07:17 PM