Rockabilly Boogie

Johnny was born in 1934 in Memphis, the city where Rock’n’Roll began. A career in boxing seemed most likely tfor the Burnette brothers before meeting Burlison, who’d graduated from High School two years before Elvis Presley. Burlison had backed Blues giant Howlin’ Wolf on radio appearances and worked at Crown Electrics with Dorsey, with Elvis later becoming a workmate. They had also taken to rehearsing in the basement of one of the apartment blocks in Lauderdale Court. With the apartment above rented by the Presley family, who had not long arrived from Tupelo. Legend has it that, Elvis would slip downstairs and sit quietly in a corner, listening to them rehearse. And it was after seeing Elvis on television in January 1956, that sent the Rock’n’Roll Trio to New York where their appearances on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour saw them sign to the Coral Label. The three-time talent show winners immediately set about recording a repertoire based equally on R&B and Country & Western material. The Rockabilly they cut for Coral, some 25 tracks, was later described by genre expert Bill Millar as ‘unrivalled for unsubtle power and wild intensity’. Joe Turner’s Honey Hush, and the self-penned Tear It Up have been constantly recycled by acts. The originals are included in this LP along with other material such as Rock Therapy, Lonesome Train and Touch me.