Discovering the music of
Johnny Burnette is like finishing an
Agatha Christie novel only to find the
last page was torn out. His seminal music, dating from the mid-Fifties to shortly before his tragic death in 1964, was always that of an artist in transition. Tracing his 8-year career, one can hear Burnette move from rough-edged rockabilly to slickly
produced pop. He forged a singularly
charming hybrid of those styles, one
which is all his own. Sadly, the promise of his potential was so abruptly cut short. An unfinished tale.
From an early age, Johnny Burnette (born
March 25, 1934, in Memphis, Tennessee)
was fascinated by music. By the time he
reached his teens, he would often occupy
himself by playing his guitar for hours
on end. However, as the Fifties rolled
around he got sidetracked into boxing, a
career in which his older brother Dorseyhad already experienced some success. Fortunately for music fans, sixty dollars and one broken nose later, Johnny quit the ring and set his sights
on the stage.
Contrary to legend, Johnny Burnette did
not go to high school with Elvis Presley, nor did he work for Presley's employer, Crown Electric. He mainly worked as a deck hand on barges
traversing the Mississippi River. Dorsey, having given up boxing as well,
worked on other Mississippi barges, as
an oiler. Although they worked
separately, each of them would bring his
guitar on board and write songs during
his spare time. Once back home in
Memphis they would perform those and
other songs together at local bars, with
a varying array of sidemen.
Dorsey eventually left the Mississippi
behind to work for Crown Electric.
Besides meeting Elvis there, he also met Paul Burlison, guitarist for the Memphis Four.
Although it has been reported that Elvis
Presley's trio inspired Johnny Burnette
to form one, it seems more likely that
the opposite was the case, since
Burnette formed his trio in 1953. Johnny
persuaded Dorsey and Paul Burlison that
they should pool their musical forces.
The new group, calling itself The Rock
And Roll Trio, featured Johnny on lead
vocals and guitar, Dorsey on stand-up
bass, and Paul Burlison on lead guitar.
(Later, record labels would bill them as
Johnny Burnette And The Rock And Roll
Trio," and after that as "The Johnny
Burnette Trio.")
In early 1956, a couple of years after
an unsuccessful single on a tiny local
label, the trio decided to seek its
fortune in New York City. Although
legend has it that they went there
solely to audition for the "Ted Mack
Amateur Hour" TV show, their original
reason for heading north was to get new
day jobs. Dorsey and Paul had been laid
off due to a slowdown of the Memphis
economy, and the electricians' union had
offered to find them work in New York.
One night, while Dorsey was viewing
sci-fi fare in a Times Square movie
house, Johnny and Paul decided to attend
a taping of the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour."
Once they took their seats in the
audience, they found themselves wishing
they were onstage instead. Afterwards,
they questioned an usher and were led to
a staffer, who told them to attend and
audition being held that week. Years
later, Paul Burlison recounted the story
to Goldmine magazine: "We got to the
audition and there was a line going all
across the lobby, all the way up a
flight of stairs, and all the way down a
hall to a door. People coming out said
they were booked solid for the next few
months and no one would get on 'til
after that. 'Okay, boys, you've got six
minutes to do your stuff - and out.
That's all you've got.' I plugged the
guitar and the amp in real fast.'
Burlison needn't have worried, for the
trio made such an impression on the
judges that they were invited to appear
on the show the very next week. For the
next few months the trio appeared to be
living a classic success story. They won
on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour" three
weeks in a row, earning them a string of
tour dates.
The national publicity from the show
made the trio a hot commodity among
record labels. The group chose Coral,
and they quickly began to record a
string of rockabilly classics. These
included "Tear It Up," "Oh Baby Babe,"
and "Honey Hush." One of their most
influential recordings was the B-side of
"Honey Hush," "The Train Kept A
Rollin'," famous for its revolutionary
usage of electronic feedback. Although
none of the records became national
hits, they became favorites among
budding rockers, particularly those who
would front the British Invasion. A few
years later, The Beatles would cover the
trio's songs ("Lonesome Tears In My
Eyes" and "Honey Hush," in particular)
at live gigs and on BBCradio. The early Yardbirdspractically made a career out of covering the trio's songs, with "The Train Kept A Rollin'" and their own rewrite of that song, "Stroll On." Despite the trio's lack of national
record sales, they were among the most
visible exponents of rock n' roll. They
appeared on nearly all the major
television shows, including "The Steve
Allen Show," "American Bandstand," and
"Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall." They
also did did a now-legendary performance
in disc jockey Alan Freed's film Rock,
Rock, Rock, doing "Lonesome Train On A
Lonesome Track."
By the fall of 1957 the trio's initial
rush of fame had evaporated.
Disappointed with Coral's efforts, and
tired of playing gig after gig to
promote records that weren't selling,
the group decided to split. While
Burlison chose to settle into domestic
life, the Burnettes tried their hands as
professional songwriters.
Johnny and his friend Joe Campbell
decided to hitch a ride on a railroad
boxcar out to Los Angeles. Once there,
Joe bought a "Map To The Stars" which
gave the location of Ricky Nelson's
home. In an effort to get the Burnettes'
songs to Ricky, Joe and Johnny decided
to sit on the star's steps until they
could get an audience with him. Their
persistence worked, and Ricky wound up
recording several of the Burnettes'
songs, including hits like "Believe What
You Say" and "It's Late."
Although Johnny was a successful
songwriter, he still wanted to be an
artist as well. His success with Nelson
helped him to get a solo recording deal
with Liberty Records' Freedom offshoot
label. Between the fall of 1958 and the
summer of 1959, he released three
singles on Freedom, all unsuccessful. In
mid-1959, Freedom shut down and Johnny
was moved to the main Liberty label
under the direction of producer Snuff
Garrett. Since Liberty had more
promotional machinery than Freedom,
Johnny's Liberty singles stood a greater
chance of succeeding.
Unfortunately, all the promotion in the
world couldn't help Johnny Burnette's
first Liberty single, "Settin' The Woods
On Fire." There was no doubting its
quality, and it did well in some
regional markets, but that initial
promise ended when adults heard it and
misinterpreted its theme. The song was
banned in at least one state out of
fears that it would provoke teenagers to
commit arson (!).
Johnny Burnette's second Liberty single,
"Patrick Henry," did little better than
the first. Perhaps the record company
would have been wiser to turn the record
over and promote the more commercial
B-side "Don't Do It." His third Liberty
single, "Dreamin'," was the one that
made him famous to millions who had
never even heard of The Rock And Roll
Trio. It reached #11 on Billboard's Hot
100 and in England, did even better,
hitting #5 and inspiring future star
Freddie Garrity to name his backup band
the Dreamers. Although Johnny put a lot
of himself into his delivery of the
song, its string-laden arrangement
seemed a far cry from his rockabilly
roots. One might assume that producer
Snuff Garrett forced the violins on
Johnny, but that wasn't so. As Johnny
later explained in a 1961 Armed Forces radio interview, the arrangement was his idea. Rather than marking a new, softer
direction, it was meant to simply
express a different facet of Johnny's
musical personality. Anyone who believed
that Johnny's rockin' roots were buried
needed only listen to the flip,
"Cincinnati Fireball."
The follow-up did even better. "You're
Sixteen" broke Johnny Burnette into the
Top Ten and earned him a gold record,
hitting #8 at the tail end of 1960. In
England, it hit #3 and was heard by
another future star - Ringo Starr - who
made it an international smash once
again when he recorded it 13 years
later. "You're Sixteen" was penned by
Richard and Robert Sherman, a pair of
brothers who knew a thing or two about
writing for adolescents, as they scored
most of Walt Disney's movies throughout
the Sixties.
While "You're Sixteen" sat near the top
of the charts, Snuff Garrett brought
Johnny Burnette into the studio to
record the follow-up, "Little Boy Sad."
An excellent recording, it combined rock
and roll instrumentation with haunting,
Bernard Hermann-esque strings. "Little
Boy Sad" charted at #17 - not bad, but
disappointing, coming on the heels of
two smashes. Garrett decided that a
change of direction was in order. He
recorded "Big, Big World," with Johnny
and quickly brought it onto the market.
While Garrett can't be faulted for
trying, the public was apparently not
ready for such a downbeat song from
Johnny, and it only reached #58.
Confusion exists over the history of
Johnny Burnette's next single, "I've Got
A Lot Of Things To Do" b/w "Girls." It
appears that "Girls" was originally
intended as the A-side. "Girls"
certainly seems the more commercial of
the two, especially for the man who only
months before hit with "You're Sixteen."
However, it was "I've Got A Lot Of
Things To Do" that got the most airplay
- perhaps the disc jockeys themselves
decided which song to plug. Since "I've
Got A Lot Of Things To Do" had only
marginal success, one will never know
whether "Girls" would have done better
if given the chance. England did give it
a chance, and it reached #37 there in
September 1961.
The Carl Perkins number "Fools Like Me" was supposed to be Johnny Burnette's next single, but it was canceled in favor of "God, Country And My Baby." "Fools Like Me" remained in the can for nearly thirty years, finally emerging in 1989 on the English collection The Best Of Johnny Burnette (Liberty/EMI).
The patriotism of "God, Country And My
Baby" clicked with Americans in November
1961. It was the month that President
John F. Kennedy moved to increase the
number of American advisers in Vietnam
from 1,000 to 16,000. "God, Country And
My Baby" reached #18 and would be Johnny
Burnette's last major American hit.
"Dreamin'" co-author Barry DeVorzon was
undoubtedly ecstatic when Johnny
Burnette recorded another of his
compositions, "Second Chance." However,
when the song remained unreleased, Barry
gave it a second chance with a group he
was producing at the time, The Cascades.
It became their first single. (Their
second was the classic "Rhythm Of The
Rain.") Like "Fools Like Me," Johnny's
original version of "Second Chance"
remained unreleased until The Best Of
Johnny Burnette.
"Clown Shoes" was penned by Texan talent
James Marcus Smith, who would later
become a superstar in Britain under the
name P.J. Proby. Like Proby himself,
"Clown Shoes" was to find most of its
success only in England, where it hit
#35.
"The Fool Of The Year" was written by
another future star, David Gates, who
would become a founding member of Bread.
While the song was musically strong, it
did nothing to reverse Johnny Burnette's
downward chart trend. In a business
where where you are only as good as your
last hit, Johnny was having an
increasingly difficult time getting
heard.
"Damn The Defiant," a Johnny
Horton-style naval tale was Johnny
Burnette's first self-penned Liberty
A-side and his last single for the
label. He then switched to Chancellor,
the label that had been successful with
teen idols like Fabian and Frankie
Avalon. In 1963, after three
unsuccessful singles, he switched labels
once more, this time to Capitol and
producer Jim Economides.
On Capitol, Johnny Burnette recaptured
the magic that was missing from much of
his later Liberty work. His first
Capitol single, "It Isn't There," was a
dramatically soulful ballad, like the
best of Gene Pitney. (In England, where
it was the B-side of "All Week Long," it
was noticed - and recorded - by the
Swinging Blue Jeans.) Other singles were
similarly accessible, like "The
Opposite," with its witty lyrics and
searing guitar solo. Johnny's last
Capitol single, his own composition
"Sweet Suzie," was ironically a return
to his roots: a stunning melange of
rockabilly, Chuck Berry riffs and irrepressible teen spirit.
A '90s CD compilation included two Capitol recordings that had never before appeared anywhere: "I Think She Knows"
and "It All Depends On Linda." Despite
the strong quality of Johnny's Capitol
singles, none of them hit.
It would be easy to blame Johnny
Burnette's decline in record sales on
the British Invasion, which ironically,
he helped inspire. The truth is that
even before the British Invasion, teen
idols had a notoriously short chart
lifespan. In 1964 Johnny's only hope for
returning to the top was to reinvent
himself in a way that would appeal to
rock and roll fans in general, not just
teens. (He said as much in a recently
issued radio interview.) In the summer
of that year, when his yearlong Capitol
contract ran out, he decided to try to
make it once more, but this time on his
own terms. He formed a label, Sahara,
which would handle not only his own
recordings but those of others as well.
After years of being directed by others
in the music business, Johnny was
finally going to call the shots in his
career.
Immediately after Sahara released its
first Johnny Burnette single, "Fountain
Of Love," Johnny was informed that the
name Sahara was already taken. He
renamed the label Magic Lamp and quickly
released a different single, "Bigger
Man." Nothing stood in the way of his
realizing his dreams as both an artist
and a businessman. But before anyone
could gauge the chances of "Bigger Man,"
there came the tragic accident that took Johnny's life.
After dark on August 14, 1964, in Clear
Lake, Calif., Johnny Burnette's tiny,
unlit fishing boat was rammed by an
unaware cabin cruiser. The impact threw
him off the boat and he drowned.
During the years following Johnny
Burnette's death, a flood of reissues,
combined with a host of rockers covering
Johnny's songs, saw to it that his name
would not be forgotten. The most fitting
exponent of his legacy proved to be his
own son, Rocky Burnette, who landed a
#8 pop hit in 1980 with his
rockabilly-inspired "Tired Of Toein' The Line." His cousin, Dorsey's son Billy Burnette also went on to make quite a name for himself, eventually joining Fleetwood Mac in 1987.
Johnny Burnette's music survives
because it has beauty, bite, sincerity,
and soul - qualities that are even more
rare and precious today than they were
thirty years ago.
- DAWN EDEN, June 1992
