Dorsey Burnette - Sings In The Fifties Vol. 1-3 '2018

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Shattered Dreams
02. Midnight Train
03. Blues Stay Away From Me
04. Chains of Love
05. Sweet Love on My Mind
06. My Love, Youre a Stranger
07. The Devils Queen
08. Lets Fall In Love
09. At A Distance
10. Jungle Magic
11. Believe What You Say
12. How Do You Rock
13. Boppin Rosalie
14. Do Baby Do
15. Were Gonna Rock Tonight
16. Be My Love Tonight
17. Oh Vera Mae
18. Warm Love
19. My Honey
20. Believe What You Say (Take 2)
21. Its Late
22. Bertha Lou
23. Till The Law Says Stop

01. Warm Love
02. Boppin Rosalie
03. Do Baby Do
04. My Honey
05. Its Late
06. I Only Came To Dance
07. Try
08. You Came As a Miracle
09. Boom Boom Boom Yippy Yi Ya
10. If You Love Me Strong Enough
11. Rockin The Town
12. Honey Honey
13. Way In The Middle Of The Night
14. Waitin At The Station
15. Waitin At The Station (Take 2)
16. Your Love
17. Lonely Train
18. Lonely Train (Take 2)
19. Way In the Middle of The Night
20. Misery
21. Wampus Cat

01. Im Happy
02. Circle Rock
03. House With a Tin Roof Top
04. Blue School Days
05. Chained
06. Jeannie
07. Wait For Me
08. Water Boy
09. Circle Rock
10. House With a Tin Roof Top
11. Daddy-O
12. Theres Gonna Be Lovin
13. Just Gotta Be My Baby
14. Schools Out
15. Nightwalker [instrumental]
16. Lights Out
17. Come On and Rock
18. Crazy Date


Dorsey Burnette is best remembered today as the brother of Johnny Burnette and a
member of the Johnny Burnette Trio, and as the father of Billy Burnette. He had
a solo career of his own, however, during the early 60s, and also wrote over 350
songs covered by the likes of Rick Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings,
Glen Campbell, and Stevie Wonder, among many others.
Dorsey Burnette was born on December 28, 1932, in Memphis, the older of two sons
of Dorsey Sr. and Willy May Burnette. He got his first guitar, a Gene Autry
model, from his father at age six, at the same time that his father gave
four-year-old Johnny a similar instrument -- the two immediately smashed them.
His father eventually convinced the pair that if they learned to play guitar,
they could be like the players on the Grand Ole Opry. Dorsey was a tough kid
with a violent temper and not a lot of smarts holding it in check, and he was
constantly in trouble in school and spending time with the wrong crowd. By the
time he was a young teenager, Dorsey was hanging out at the Poplar Street
Mission with future recording artist Lee Denson, when he wasnt getting arrested
for truancy or fighting. He competed in the Golden Gloves as an aspiring boxer,
and it was at the 1949 championship that he met Paul Burlison, another aspiring
fighter. They made note of their shared interest in music, but Burlisons
induction into the Army in 1951 prevented him from hooking up just then with
Dorsey and Johnny, who had begun playing together in the late 40s. They were
good enough to get sponsored by a local appliance store on one of the Memphis
radio stations, doing country music, and they played gigs throughout the Memphis
area, principally for beer money, fun, and girls -- he and his confederates
worked hard and played hard, and music and the possibility of success that it
offered probably kept Dorsey out of jail.
Dorsey, Johnny, and Burlison finally hooked up in mid-1952, working as a trio
and within other, larger groups. They cut their first record, Go Mule Go/Youre
Undecided, for the tiny Von label in 1954, their lineup augmented by a fourth
member, fiddler Tommy Seeley. That record may have sold fewer than 200 copies,
but Dorsey Burnette wasnt to be stopped -- he claimed that the group auditioned
for Sam Phillips at Sun, but was rejected.
Dorsey worked his day jobs -- picking cotton, deckhand on a riverboat,
fisherman, carpet-layer, and electricians apprentice at Crown Electric. While he
was there, a day laborer a little younger than Dorsey who had grown up in the
same housing project quit his job to try making it in music after cutting a
couple of records. Elvis Presleys example, going off as part of a trio with
Scotty Moore and Bill Black, brought the Burnette brothers and company to the
decision to formalize their work together. Burlison and Burnettes subsequently
layoff from Crown Electric made the decision a no-brainer.
As a result, in early 1956, they were off to New York, where Dorsey Burnette and
Paul Burlison got jobs as electricians assistants while Johnny Burnette went to
work in the garment district in Manhattans West 30s. They decided to try out for
Ted Macks Amateur Hour, which was one of the top new talent showcases in the
country, just at the time when Elvis Presley -- now signed to RCA Victor -- was
burning up the airwaves with Heartbreak Hotel, and were picked to play on the
program. The group, known as the Rock n Roll Trio, won three successive shows
broadcast over the ABC network; by the time of the third they had professional
management, and soon after that they were signed to the Coral label, part of the
Decca Records (now MCA) family of labels.
The Rock n Roll Trio didnt last, either as a trio or a name, as they failed to
find any hits -- despite a killer version of Train Kept A-Rollin to their credit
-- and by late 1957 they were getting billed as Johnny Burnette & the Rock n
Roll Trio. This was probably as much a marketing ploy as a reflection of the
reality that a fourth member, in the person of a drummer, had joined the group
-- Johnny Burnette was a good rock & roll name to push in lieu of the groups
moniker, although Dorsey was the one who did most of the songwriting and had
also sung lead on some of their numbers. He couldnt stomach the change in
billing or his younger brothers sudden push to the front, and finally quit the
group and returned to Memphis just prior to the groups scheduled appearance in
the Alan Freed jukebox movie Rock Rock Rock.
He tried assembling his own group, Dorsey Burnette & the Rock n Roll Trio, but
they never caught on and disbanded before 1958 was over. He tried reconstituting
himself as a solo act and got an offer to go out to California to appear on the
Town Hall Party (the West Coasts leading country music showcase), rejecting the
chance to work the Louisiana Hayride. He moved his whole family -- including
Johnny, who was no longer recording, under his name or any other -- out with him
and struggled to make ends meet, working as an electrician and writing songs in
his spare time.
It was Burnettes brashness in walking up to the home of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson
-- famous from television and radio as entertainers, and the parents of Ricky
and David Nelson -- and asking to speak to Ricky that got him his break as a
songwriter. Rick Nelson literally pulled up on his motorcycle, accepted Dorseys
introduction, and had him and Johnny audition right there. He ended up recording
a dozen of their songs, most of them written by Dorsey Burnette, and his success
with Waitin in School got the Burnettes a new contract with Imperial Records and
Dorsey a hookup with Imperials publishing division, Commodore Music.
Roy Brown later covered Dorsey and Johnnys Hip Shakin Baby, and Dorsey managed
to get a solo hit in 1959 on the Era label with Tall Oak Tree, a song that Rick
Nelson had rejected. Ironically, given Johnny Burnettes prominence, Dorseys
first hit came five months before his brother finally reached the charts with
Dreamin. The two successes led Coral Records to dig into their vaults and
release a 1957-vintage single of Blues Stay Away from Me.
The Burnettes never had another hit, although Dorsey kept writing and recording
long after Tall Oak Tree. His contract was sold to the Dot label (now owned by
MCA), and he cut three singles and an album during the six months he was there.
During this period, eight-year-old Billy Burnette made his recording debut on
the maudlin Little Child, which mercifully wasnt released until 1992.
Dorsey Burnettes family life took a tragic turn from which he never fully
recovered in 1964, when Johnny Burnette died in a drowning accident. The
surviving brother, driven by guilt or depression and his self-destructive
nature, became a chronic alcoholic and drug abuser, his musical abilities and
reliability suffering in the process as he staggered from failure to failure
across a dozen labels over the next 15 years. Dorsey found some belated comfort
in Christianity, becoming born again in the 1970s and returning to where he
started, in country music. His country recordings for Capitol Records got him
pegged as most promising newcomer by one music organization that never
recognized his earlier activity in rock & roll, and revitalized his career. By
then, Burnette was appearing in small venues and playing to anyone who would pay
him, getting into fights occasionally, and taking too many drinks and too many
pills. In his shows, he would do his newer songs and a few of the old rockabilly
numbers like Tear It Up, which he counted as country music.
Somehow, he never found the right label once the Capitol contract was over. In
1979, however, he signed a contract with Elektra Records and began recording
with fellow former rockabilly star Jimmy Bowen. Things looked promising, and
Burnette, whose fame in England had never subsided (American rockabilly stars
being treated like Olympian demigods anywhere but America), even supposedly did
a recording session with Led Zeppelin (according to rumor). The first single by
Burnette and Bowen had just been released when Burnette died of a heart attack
on August 19, 1979. Among those who performed at the benefit concert organized
on behalf of Burnettes widow by Delaney Bramlett were Kris Kritofferson, Tanya
Tucker, Roger Miller, and Glen Campbell.
Dorsey Burnette will probably always be best remembered as a member of the Rock
n Roll Trio in association with his brother Johnny, their work spread between
the MCA and Capitol/EMI labels (which took over the Liberty catalog), but he
spent most of his time in music as a solo act, whether he was recording or
writing songs. Apart from Tall Oak Tree and Hey Little One, he recorded an
impressive array of soulful pop and rockabilly numbers, eerily recalling Elvis
Presleys 1950s and early-60s sound (only Burnettes songs are better), most of
which are worth owning.

Related artists