Tuesday, November 30, 2010

TAKE THAT KEVIN BACON


Paul Burlison, Johnny Burnette, Gene Vincent, Johnny Black

I was honored today to receive a comment on one of my earlier posts, from David Burlison, a name I instantly recognized; half of it anyways, the last name Burlison. He is the son of rockabilly great, Paul Burlison, the former guitarist for Johnny Burnette and the Rock n' Roll Trio. While this is not a big deal to most of you, it made my day for a couple of reasons; not the least of which is that I feel like it's some sort of "six degrees of separation" type thing that links this blog to the son of Paul Burlison, which links to someone who played on some of the greatest rockabilly cuts of all time, which also links to not only Johnny Burnette, but Gene Vincent, who was one of his acquaintances. That's three degrees, if you're counting. With the fourth degree, you get Cliff Gallup, another amazing rockabilly guitarist who played with Vincent, and Eddie Cochran, who was good friends with Vincent.

Eddie Cochran and Sharon Sheely

By the fifth degree, you get Sharon Sheely, Cochran's girlfriend, who wrote Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool," Ritchie Valens' "Hurry Up," and co-wrote Cochran's "Something Else" (with Cochran's brother Bob). So, Ricky Nelson and Richie Valens are at six degrees of separation, if you're still counting. Now, all of this doesn't really mean shit to anybody but me, especially when I remind myself that David Burlison is one degree closer to all of those people up there. It did give me something to write about, trivial as it is.

The other reason I was excited to receive the comment from Burlison, was because it added to the discussion about the origin of fuzz guitar (fuzzgate) and it's use on some of Johnny Burnette and the Rock n' Roll Trio's best sides. His comment can be seen on this post, admittedly of interest only to Burnette, Burlison, rockabilly and guitar fiends. But, I know you're out there.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Johnny Burnette & the Rock n' Roll Trio - Train Kept A Rollin' at LexJansen.com
Johnny Burnette & the Rock n' Roll Trio - Honey Hush mp3 at RocknDog.com
Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps - Cat Man mp3 at MoteldeMoka
Eddie Cochran - Nervous Breakdown mp3 at Uusikaupunki.fi
Ricky Nelson - Hello Mary Lou mp3 at smu.edu
Ritchie Valens - Little Girl mp3 at Fileden
Here Come Da Fuzz - post about Burlison's fuzz (posted 8/2/2008)

No comments: