Guitarist for Bill Haley and the Comets
NORRISTOWN, Pa. - Franny Beecher, lead guitarist for Bill Haley and the Comets, which helped kick off the rock ‘n’ roll era with the hit “Rock Around the Clock” in 1955, has died. He was 92.
Beecher died in his sleep Monday night at a nursing home near Philadelphia, daughter Pauline Grinstead said Tuesday.
The Comets are credited by some music historians with having recorded the first rock ‘n’ roll song in 1953 with “Crazy Man, Crazy,” the group’s biography on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website says.
Beecher, born Francis Beecher in 1921 in Norristown, Pa., started playing guitar before crowds when he was 17 and continued until he was 90. Before the Comets, he performed with Buddy Greco and Benny Goodman, Grinstead said.
Although Philadelphia session musician Danny Cedrone played on the original recording of “Rock Around the Clock” before his death in 1954, Beecher played the signature song for the first time on national television in 1955.
“Rock Around the Clock” became a hit again nearly 20 years after its release when it was included on the soundtrack of American Graffiti.
The Comets broke up in 1962, but in the 1980s, Beecher and some of the original members reunited and played tour dates around the United States and internationally for years.
Former editor of Los Angeles Times
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES - William F. Thomas, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times who helped the newspaper gain an international reputation and garner 11 Pulitzer Prizes during his 27-year tenure, has died.
Thomas died of natural causes Sunday at his Sherman Oaks home, his son Pete told the Times. He was 89.
Thomas led the Times from 1971 to 1989, when the newspaper widened its reach with the opening of domestic and foreign bureaus while launching a Sunday magazine and regional editions.
Previously, when Thomas was metro editor, the newspaper won its first Pulitzer for local reporting for its coverage of the 1965 Watts riot.
Thomas established the newspaper’s reputation for literary journalism by giving reporters the freedom to pursue more esoteric stories that didn’t usually appear in newspapers.
Thomas fulfilled Publisher Otis Chandler’s ambition of putting the Times on the level of its more established rivals, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
During his nearly three decades at the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper experienced a rise in circulation from 757,000 daily subscribers in 1962 to more than 1.1 million in 1989, when Thomas retired.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 02/26/2014