Jesse Stone was an in-house writer at Atlantic Records who composed "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in 1954. The blues and band singer Big Joe Turner became a rock and roll hero when he was the first to record the standard at the age of 43.

Bill Haley was one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He may have been blind in one eye, but he and the Comets (The Saddlemen) took "Shake, Rattle and Roll" to the top of the charts in 1955.