The Rock and Roll Trio

By Wes Phillips • Posted: May 26, 2006

Locust Street has a fabulous essay on the Johnny Burnette Rock and Roll Trio, along with three top-notch examples of what that group could do. Johnny, his brother Dorsey, and guitarist Paul Burlison just flat out rocked and the fierce rhythm and burning guitar of "Train Kept a-Rollin'" sounds remarkably fierce 50 years later.

All of you LP buyers need to keep your peepers peeled for the Solid Smoke label's great-sounding late '70s release of the Rock and Roll Trio's Coral sides.

Comments

Submitted by Jeff Wong on May 27, 2006 - 10:34am.

After Elvis Costello's Almost Blue came out, I tried tracking down as many of the original vinyl versions of the songs he covered as I could. I have a gorgeous 7 Coral 45 of the Johnny Burnette Trio's ""Honey Hush"" with ""Train Kept a-Rollin'"" as the flip. It's a great record", so, I'll keep my eyes peeled for the LP.

Submitted by Wes Phillips on May 28, 2006 - 10:18am.

You're amazing, Jeff. I just can't stump you. This is like the time I lent you my tatty old copy of Ross Thomas' Chinaman's Chance and, after you'd read it, you said," ""I just realized I had a first edition of it that I'd picked up somewhere and never gotten around to reading.""

Submitted by bllfrog on May 29, 2006 - 2:58pm.

In the liner notes of a 1978 Solid Smoke LP reisssue of the RNR Trio, Paul Burlison explains,"After carrying my equipment on stage one night, I didn't realize I had knocked an amplifier tube loose. We started playing, and my sound was distorted, like a fuzz sound. And we really liked it! So whenever we wanted that sound, I just pulled that tube out a bit.The dawn of tube tweaking...

Submitted by wes Phillips on May 30, 2006 - 5:37am.

Great pickup," bilfrog. I'd heard all those ""slash the speaker with a knife"" stories and that explanation never seemed credible. Tube distortion - that I can buy.