Photo: James Burton | By Joel McIver, Guitar Player | “The first guitar that Leo Fender tried to lay on me was a Stratocaster,” James Burton says with a chuckle. At 83 years, he’s fit and well, with memories like very few other musicians. “I said, ‘No, man, I’m not gonna take it!’ The Stratocaster’s for younger kids. They like the whammy bar and all.”
So no Strats in the Burton collection, then? “Well, it just depends on what you prefer,” he reasons. “Some people like a fretboard that’s flat, but I like a little bit of roundness to it, so for me, there’s only one guitar to talk about: the Fender Telecaster. You know, Leo Fender was a wonderful guy. I met him many years ago, even before I went to work with Ricky Nelson. Leo assured me that whatever I wanted, it would be no problem: he’d take care of it. And he did.”
Indeed, as far back as 1961, Burton was tearing up that slightly rounded fretboard on Ricky Nelson’s “Hello, Mary Lou” with a solo that left young listeners speechless. (One of those kids was the rocking knight of the realm, Sir Brian May, who regularly cites Burton as an influence.) Check out that solo below if you don’t know it already: it leaps from the speakers at 1:04 with a flurry of string bends and sassy popped notes, sounding nothing like its 62 years of age.
Born in 1939 in Dubberly, Louisiana, Burton was a self-taught guitar prodigy who played on the Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport as a teenager. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began his career with Nelson and recorded numerous sessions. One of them was Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit “Susie Q,” a tune Burton co-wrote and which was timed perfectly to assist with the birth of rock and roll.
He swiftly became an in-demand guitarist, songwriter and bandleader. As a young, hotshot guitarist, Burton recorded with Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, the Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Sinatra, Buffalo Springfield, Townes Van Zandt and a litany of other 1960s greats before he joined Elvis Presley in 1968 as leader of the TCB (Taking Care of Business) Band. Hot as a pistol after that year’s televised comeback special, Elvis, the King was dominating Las Vegas with an extravagant live residency.
Burton’s profile went stratospheric after Elvis began to include the command “Play it, James!” in each show, just before the guitarist ripped a spectacular solo – with no overdrive, and played with a pick-plus-fingers hybrid technique – from his custom Pink Paisley Telecaster. He remained at Elvis’s side for the remainder of the singer’s tragically curtailed career, . . .
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In 2005 Burton launched the James Burton Foundation (https://www.jamesburtonfoundation.org), a charitable group whose aims are to support music education for those in need through guitar donations and music instruction to schools, hospitals and community service organizations. “The Foundation is doing really good,” he says. “We’ve been able to present guitars to young kids and to veterans, and people are real excited about it. I like to be able to present guitars to the young kids and keep our music program going. You can’t do too much.”
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. . . Considering all he’s done over his career, we imagine it’s a tricky task for Burton to pick out just five songs that define his legacy – although he somehow manages to do just that. “I can’t count how many songs I’m on, but it’s been over 500 albums, so the song titles must be in the thousands,” he says. “Still, you know, it’s never-ending. Your best song is always yet to come.”
1. “Susie Q” by Dale Hawkins from ‘Oh! Suzy-Q’ (1958)
“I wrote this song when I was a young boy. I played this little guitar lick and there it was, just a little instrumental thing. I was working with a blues singer, Dale Hawkins, and Dale wrote a few lyrics to it. I think he had a girlfriend he called Susie Q. “We did the recording at a radio station, KWKH in Shreveport [in 1957. The single was released that year and the album in 1958]. I’m not even sure if we had drums in there. There was just one mic in the room. I played through a little Gretsch amp that I didn’t keep very long. That was what I used before I got my Fender amp.
“I used the original guitar that my mother and father bought me: a red Telecaster. It’s been on millions of records and it’s a great guitar. I’d say it’s my favorite guitar out of all the ones I’ve owned. It’s still playing fine, too. It’s all original: it’s never needed a fret dress or anything. “Someone asked me one time, if I wanted to sell my Telecaster, what would I sell it for. I said, ‘Well, it would be in the millions.’ The guy reached in his pocket and said, ‘How many?’ I said, ‘Not today!’” [laughs]
2. “Hello Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson from ‘Rick is 21’ (1961)
3. “Fools Rush In” by Ricky Nelson (1963 single) and Elvis Presley from ‘Elvis Now’ (1972)
4. “Polk Salad Annie” by Elvis Presley from ‘On Stage’ (1970)
5. “Steamroller Blues” by Elvis Presley from ‘Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite’ (1973)
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Read the full story here:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/best-song-always-yet-come-111203806.html
[Little side note: Former board member Mark King and Barb Dye got to meet Mr. Burton when they attended the NAMM convention in Memphis! He was really nice!]
Photo: James Burton performing at Sala Apolo, Barcelona, September 22, 2012. (from his Facebook page)
Telecaster Master James Burton Names Five Career-Defining Tracks
