WHAT NYMITH SAYS
It took until December of 1956 but we were finally given the real deal: an entire album (or nearly) of true rock and roll, mean and nasty odes to white-trash delinquency that make Elvis and Gene sound like Buddy Holly in comparison. That Johnny Burnette went from this to teen idoldom (best known for 'You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful, and You're Mine') is the scariest and/or funniest part of the story. But for one brief moment the intangible spirit of rock and roll was captured, I suspect by sheer accident. Why? Because no one who knew what they were doing would allow the fuzzed guitar power of 'Honey Hush' to pass them by like the Rock and Roll Trio did. Instead of recognizing the many possible futures that lay in amplification techniques, they shrugged it off as a novelty effect - good for a song or two but nothing to explore further. For that, we had to wait for the Yardbirds.
The Rock and Roll Trio consisted of Johnny Burnette (vocals, acoustic guitar), his older brother Dorsey (bass) and friend Paul Burlison (lead guitar). All three shared a background in amateur boxing, which tells you a lot right there. They won the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour (the America's Got Talent of the day) three times in a row, winning them a contract with Coral Records and a bunch of promotion - TV appearances, touring with Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins (whose cousin Tony Austin became their drummer). Unfortunately none of this resulted in commercial success and within a year the band had dissolved, leaving the Burnette brothers to seek fortune elsewhere - and so they patched up their differences and struck out for California to gain the attention of Ricky Nelson, writing songs for him and finally gaining a little secondhand success. By 1960 Johnny had learned to be a teen idol himself, however his life was tragically ended in 1964 by a boating accident.
All of this means that the Coral sessions are his primary legacy and this album (available now in a much expanded 17 song edition including 'Tear It Up' and other gems from the sessions) gives you cut after cut of the raw, primal, blistering rockabilly that made his critical reputation. I had been immersed in the 50s for so long when I first played this CD that my jaw literally dropped when the first notes of 'Honey Hush' began. When Big Joe Turner cut the original it was just another piece of Big Joe Turner jump blues with the line "don't make me nervous, I'm holding a baseball bat" sounding more like moody but tasteless hyperbole than an active threat. Here we have Johnny not even bothering to sing, shouting at the top of his lungs while Burlison sets the standard for every garage band to come. People hunting for the progenitors of punk rock rarely go back further than the 1960s but if you're looking into it then you should check this out.
'Honey Hush' kicks off a golden run of tracks, culminating with the animalistic intent of 'Train Kept a-Rollin,' for which Burlison again employs some strategic amping. It is sheer primitive genius. The other songs are more straightforward rockabilly, but there again, the energy level annihilates any competition. It's all about the brawn. One of my favourites, 'Rock Billy Boogie,' is exactly the sort of generic dancefloor celebration that could have been sung by anyone from Bill Haley onwards. The joy of the Burnette delivery is that the band couldn't hone their punches at all, somehow turning this fluffy throwaway into a dark rocker (again I suspect by accident). 'Lonesome Train (On a Lonesome Track)' and 'Sweet Love on My Mind' make it clear that the persona of a desperate delinquent was made for Johnny where someone like Elvis could only ever pretend. Track after track show the Trio picking their battles and winning every one.
Of course, what is a landmark record without some headscratching embarrassment? In this case, the disastrous decision to include three ballads on the second half of the album, sequenced to deliberately kill the mood by following the knockout punch of 'Train Kept A Rollin' with the eye-watering pain of 'I Just Found Out.' Johnny Burnette at this stage in life is a clumsy, bearlike balladeer (it's a credit of sorts that by the time he got around to 'You're Sixteen' he was able to do a credible Hollywood-Elvis impersonation - say what you will, he must have really worked hard to sing that way). As soon as he painfully stammers "I-hi I just found out..." it's apparent that something went dreadfully wrong, maybe the producers trying to soften him up for the ladies (with the stammer conveying vulnerability, I guess). It doesn't work well taken out of context and taken WITHIN context it's laughable - we've just heard him sing song after song conveying lust and fury, threatening his woman with a baseball bat, and now we're supposed to buy a sudden attempt at country-boy sensitivity? The worst of them is probably 'I Love You So,' where he's backed with inane doo-wop vocals, but they all damage the listening experience. 'Chains of Love' is at least done in a ragged style that halfways suits the Trio but that doesn't mean it has a lot going for it.
It could be argued that since many of the rockers sound similar some change of pace was simply necessary to preserve the dynamic. Yes, 'Your Baby Blue Eyes' does start in an identical fashion to 'Sweet Love on My Mind' but it's about equally good so why mess with a formula that delivers results? They could never compete with the real ladies' men for romantic appeal and it was foolish to try when they had their own sound that no one else was enough of a caveman to take on. And it isn't like the ballads won the Burnette brothers any short-term publicity - the record and singles buying public were just not interested in anything they did.
Luckily, this lackluster closing chapter ends with 'Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee,' a final classic in which Johnny does a perfect impression of a rough and ready hellraiser, drawing the album to a perfect finish and letting me (mostly) forget their momentary lapse of taste and reason, probably brought on by the band trying to be tasteful and reasonable. That just isn't their strong suit. When you listen, feel free to skip the slow songs and go for the undying classics. "Pass that bottle to meeee!!!"
WHAT TICHARU SAYS
What a strange anomaly, if you were the record buying public in 1956, what do you make of this? Could music be any more primitive and raw than this? Sings like a dang Neanderthal!
Nobody bought it, nobody liked it, but what a totally brilliant record. Well, most of it is brilliant, in fact the rock 'n roll element on this album flattens the competition and if not for the ill-advised ballads a total masterpiece and quite possibly the very first hard rock album in the world. They didn't know what they had and poor Johnny just wanted to be successful and who can blame him, a guy's got to eat, but if the Rock 'n Roll Trio could have hung on for another 10 years, wow, what could have been. They would have been genuine rock stars.
OK, none of that was really possible, they would have learned to play, got better amps, etc... this album is more like a brilliant fluke that no one realised would become the blueprint for a sound. Very sad that Johnny didn't live to see it.
What does it sound like Ticharu?
It's the sound of alley-cats! It's the sound of a big ol' guitar with too many dang strings on it! How did they get that sound? It sounds like octaves to me and a most excellent analogue fuzz-tone, an over-driven something perfection and thank providence they didn't record over it!
Of the new rock 'n roll albums you could put in your collection in the way back time of 1956, Elvis was cute, had a great voice but obviously a weirdo. Gene Vincent was polished and full of energy and also had an amazing voice. Then there was Johnny Burnette. If you owned THIS album YOU were cutting edge, make no mistake. This is the heart of rock 'n roll.
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