Marshall Lytle, who played bass for Bill Haley and the Comets’ and on the hit “Rock Around the Clock,” died Saturday at his home in New Port Richie, Fla., at age 79.
According to The New York Times Lytle died of lung cancer.
Haley recruited Lytle to play bass when Lytle was working as a teenage guitar player at a Chester, Pa. radio station. Lytle did not play bass at the time but Haley taught him how to play slap bass in one 30-minute session according to Rolling Stone.
“He got this old bass fiddle out, started slapping it, with a shuffle beat, and showed me the basic three notes you need on a little bass run to get started with. I gave it a try and I said, ‘Hell, I can do that,’” Lytle said on a radio interview in 2011.
Lytle played on many hits including, “Crazy, Man, Crazy,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” and their biggest hit “Rock Around the Clock.” The song was in the film “Blackboard Jungle” in 1954 and became the standard for rock ‘n’ roll.
In 1995 Lytle and two other members left Bill Haley and the Comets after a salary dispute and made their own group, the Jodimars, which became a popular Las Vegas lounge act.
Lytle and the other Comets reunited in 1987 even though Haley died in 1981 and they performed until 2009. The Comets were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.
Lytle was born in Old Fort, N.C., before moving to Pa. He was married and divorced three times but is survived by Cathy Smith, his partner since 2001, nine children and many grandchildren.
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