Editing Bill Haley & His Comets (section)

==Decline in popularity==
The band's popularity in the United States began to wane in 1956–57 as sexier, wilder acts such as [[Elvis Presley]], [[Jerry Lee Lewis]] and [[Little Richard]] began to dominate the record charts (although Haley's cover version of Little Richard's "[[Rip It Up (Little Richard song)|Rip It Up]]", released in direct competition with Little Richard's original recording, outsold the original). After "Skinny Minnie" hit the charts in 1958, Haley had little further success in the United States, although a spin-off group made up of Comets musicians dubbed '''The Kingsmen''' (no relation to the later group of "[[Louie, Louie]]" fame) had a hit with an instrumental, "Weekend", that same year.

Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be popular, touring the United Kingdom in February 1957, when Haley and his crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at [[London Waterloo railway station|Waterloo station]] in London at an incident which the media dubbed the "Second [[Battle of Waterloo]]". The group also toured Australia in 1957, and in 1958 enjoyed a successful (if riot-dominated) tour of the European mainland. Bill Haley & His Comets were the first major American rock and roll act to tour the world in this way. Elvis, who was [[Elvis Presley's Army career|on military duty]] in Germany, visited them backstage at some shows. On a free day in Berlin they performed two songs in the [[Caterina Valente]] movie ''Hier Bin ich Hier Bleib Ich (Here I Am Here I Stay)''.

Back in the U.S., Haley attempted to start his own record label, Clymax, and establish his own stable of performers, notably [[Sally Starr (TV hostess)|Sally Starr]] (the hostess of a Philadelphia television children's program) and the [[Matys Brothers]]. Members of the Comets were commissioned to work as session musicians on many of these recordings, many of which were written or co-written by Haley and members of the Comets. The Clymax experiment only lasted about a year. In 1959, Haley's relationship with Decca collapsed; after a final set of instrumental-only recordings in the fall, Haley announced he was leaving Decca for the new [[Warner Bros. Records]] label, which released two more albums in 1960, which were moderately successful. In 1960 Franny Beecher and Rudi Pompilli left the Comets to start their own record label. Replacing Beecher was a 20-year-old guitarist, [[Johnny Kay]], from Chester, Pennsylvania. Beecher later returned briefly to play with the Comets, when his record label failed to take off, sharing guitar duties with Kay. Kay left the band in 1966 but returned in the early 1970s for an aborted world tour. He appeared in the Wembley show, which was filmed and released as the London Rock and Roll Show.