AN APPRECIATION OF JAMES BURTON

By Kenny Taylor

Friday May 9 one of the most legendary guitar playing, string bending chicken pickin sidemen in all of rock and roll and country music history will be performing with an all star band at Pieres.

If this show was to be held in London ,it would be at the Royal Albert Hall and famous musicians from Jeff Beck to Jimmy Page to Big Jim Sullivan would be there to pay homage to the man. James Burton’s guitar work with Dale Hawkins and Ricky Nelson was the start of Telecaster chicken picking guitar that still reverberates in the style that Brad Paisley plays now.

You’ve heard Suzie Q by CCR?

That opening lick is a replica of the guitar shot heard around the world on Dale Hawkins original Suzie Q. played by James at the age of 14.

When Bandleader impresario and television icon Ozzie Nelson needed to but together a band for his son Ricky, young James got the call, quit his job at the Louisiana Hayride and moved out to California to be the perfect foil in the studio and television for young Rick on the Ozzie and Harriet show.

Young guitarists everywhere got to cop licks in black and white .

Even though he had great records and many many hits and was as big a star as they get, Ricky Nelson’s body of work does not get the respect that it should in the U.S.A.

But the rest of the world ranks him and his right hand man quite highly.

And James Burton is a famous name all over the world.

He was one of the sixties busiest session men, playing guitar and dobro ,on innumerable hit records.

He played and put the TCB band together for Elvis Presley during his live performance comeback of 1969 until his death in 1977.James played with Elvis 2 out of 3 times he played the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

I knew James as Elvis’s guitar player as a kid. He had a paisley telecaster and bell bottoms the way I remember it.

I had a Ricky Nelson album as a 3 year old but it took years to put a name to the guitarist.

I loved Cheap Trick as a teenager in the seventies and Rick Nielsen mentioned James Burton’s name in an interview in Guitar player magazine as his first guitar hero. I saw Cheap Trick a lot back then and figured out how to play California Man(a cover by a british band called The Move ..I digress).well theres a lick in that song that is so James Burton . it took me years to notice that . I stuck that lick forwards and and backwards in every song I could for years. Thanks Rick.

Once upon a long ago ,my old band The Blue Moon Boys got some passes to see Hermans Hermits in a theatre in Tiffin Ohio where we had a late show in a neighboring bar.

During the show Peter Noone told a story of going to Cleveland the night before to see Elvis the Concert in Cleveland where the TCB band played to large screens of Elvis and themselves playing in the early seventies. The Rolling Stones were there too and Peter was telling stories about it onstage.

On the break we were ushered backstage to meet the band, who were all nice folks. Out of the dressing room comes Peter Noone , big smile ,arm outstretched and the first thing he said was ”you’re a rockabilly band ? Well I met James Burton last night!”

And as it turns out Keith Richards inducted James into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Elvis Costello’s remarkable King Of America album features James and he has played shows on and off with him through the years, including a guest shot on Costello’s new talk show.

In E.C’s words from a recent blog , ”What I can be absolutely sure about is that we have had a big time playing the musical numbers that announce and conclude the shows. Any time I can share as stage with the Imposters and musical guests such as Allen Toussaint and James Burton, is fine by me. 

It was a little more surprising to find myself singing a Hank Williams song in a line-up that consisted of Charlie Haden, Pat Metheny and James Burton, with Pat deferring to James to take the lead. “

Yes ,Pat Metheny knows James Burton is your go to guy when the chips are down and a swinging honky tonk ballad is on the line.

Two Elvis out of two Elvis’s agree.

Friday May 9th

It starts at 8:00 sharp.

Tickets are ten bucks advance, thirteen day of show

How can you, for one, go wrong?

Kenny Taylor April 2008

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure ,my band Deuce has the honor of opening the show with a half hour set.