THE ELVIS CONNECTION

F A C T S

This page was motivated by a visit to the Forums of the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME by a "more recent" life-long ELVIS PRESLEY fan, who immediately started shooting from the hip when he found his assertion that Rock & Roll began with Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" had not only been challenged, BUT... that Elvis had also been directly influenced by the JOHNNY BURNETTE ROCK'N ROLL TRIO!

Having read a couple of Elvis Presley books, one of them by Scotty Moore, he considered himself an expert and basically said anyone who would even suggest such things was a laughable. mean-spirited "Elvis Hater!"

Ironically, he failed to realize that people who know the truth about the birth of Rock & Roll and Elvis' influences, are usually bigger Elvis fans. Yet despite such assurances that they were indeed major fans of Elvis Presley, those contributors who tried to enlighten him where basically challenged with angry accusations, including now myself. A shame indeed among people who share a passionate love of Rock & Roll. And worrisome too considering historical implications.

This then is herewith offered up to the World Wide Web so that those whom indeed love to rock can better appreciate how the music we all love so much came to be.

There's no question Elvis Presley was the explosive performer who lit the fuse for the Big Bang of Rock & Roll. It's doubtful anyone else could have done what he did in making Rock & Roll such a World Wide phenomena. But Rock & Roll was already well in progress long before he stepped into Sam Phillips' Sun Studio in Memphis. Infact, if the raw country swing of artists like Hank Williams and the electric blues boogie of artists like John Lee Hooker is what fathered Rock & Roll, it would be very hard to argue that Memphis, Tennessee isn't where the birthday party was celebrated. Rather than get into how rock's evolutionary tradition of constant musical fusion can be traced all the way back to the dance bands of the 1930s, I will concentrate here primarily on what was happening in Memphis as young Elvis tailored his hair after Tony Curtis and dreamed of becoming a crooner like Dean Martin who might also star in movies. But, let me quickly point out that what the teenage rockers of the 1950s were basically dancing was the Jitterbug!

Memphis in the early 1950s was a hotbed of musical intercourse. The street corners of Beale Street were alive with musicians, and you could also just stand outside raucous blues and hillbilly joints to get a good energy charge. There was Howlin' Wolf, who performed his dark and exciting blues not only in local nightspots, but also on local radio station KWEM (also referred to many times as WKEM). And, then, of course, there was also some pretty wild young white boys named Johnny Burnette, Dorsey Burnette and Paul Burlison.

That's Paul Burlison with the stand-up bass on the right in this picture of JESSIE CATLETT & THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLERS. Just like the young Burnette brothers had been playing guitar and singing from age 5, so had Paul always had a strong love for playing music, beginning with guitar as well at an early age. Infact, Paul even built his first electric guitar by taping a telephone pickup to his acoustic guitar. A hillbilly band he belonged to landed their own 15 minute show on KWEM right next to the timeslot of Howlin' Wolf's radio show. Having played together before, Paul would also occasionally perform on Wolf's radio show.

This is Paul Burlison in 1949 when he was a North Memphis Golden Gloves title seeker. Born Feb. 2, 1929, Paul was introduced to Dorsey Burnette by Jim Denson, Paul's boxing teacher. Dorsey was also a boxer who went on to become the Welterweight Champion of Memphis. Eventually Paul also met Johnny Burnette, another young boxer who won the Memphis Lightweight Golden Gloves Championship. Dorsey had been born Dec. 28, 1932 and Johnny on March 25, 1934. They were young, fearless and loved expressing themselves musically. Soon they were making music together, with Jesse Lee Denson joining them on guitar and teaching them some hot licks. Playing around Memphis as early as 1951, the Burnettes and Burlison quickly established a reputation for wild music, and they began attracting the attention of other young musicians. One of them was Elvis' friend Red West, who had brutally tackled Johnny Burnette once in a football game. Red soon began taking a bus to the Burnette house, hoping on joining them as a horn player. Young Elvis also knew the Burnettes, driving a truck for Crown Electric where Dorsey and Paul worked as electricians while Johnny sold dishes door-to-door with another young singer named Johnny Cash.

THE JOHNNY BURNETTE ROCK'n ROLL TRIO became a reality in 1953 when they settled into a new musical style that the world would soon know as rockabilly. Bill Haley and his western swing band had already scored with "Crazy, Man, Crazy" in 1952, the same year Lloyd Price had a major hit with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy." Those rockin' new sounds, the blues, and the hillbilly boogie of pivotal late 1940s groups like The Delmore Brothers, all merged together in the Trio's wild new sound which featured Dorsey's upright bass slapping and Johnny's singing punctuated with Rock & Roll's first screaming, while beating flat-top rhythm. While performing at a nightspot called The Hideaway, George Hawkins brought them a song he was working on. The Burnettes liked what they heard and began working on it. The way that song became "Rock Billy Boogie" and got credited for naming a new musical genre is best described by Paul, who told GUITAR PLAYER Magazine: "Rocky is Johnny's son and Billy is Dorsey's son, so I've known them since they were babies. When we used to rehearse over at Johnny and Dorsey's house, they'd each get their little toy guitar with the crank on the side and use a toilet plunger as their mike. They'd wiggle around and jump up and down, just like they were onstage." He laughed then, and again when he re-told the story of the rockin' toddlers to me as well. "It was a sight!"

It is a well-known fact that young Elvis Presley was keenly interested in the exciting new musical scene developing all around him in Memphis. Every opportunity he had he would check out blues artists and hillbilly bands. Like others he knew, Elvis didn't hesitate to get into nightclubs while under-aged, just so he could keep up with the music. And, whenever possible, he'd get up on stage and perform as well. And this is particularly true when it came to The Trio.

This is Johnny Burnette as Memphis Golden Gloves Champion. I chose this picture here because of the Rockhall Forums "fight" that I felt obliged to become personally involved in resolving. In a way, I was already directly involved because it was my comments about The Trio's influence upon Elvis that were attacked by the aforementioned Elvis fan. But, I could have ignored the whole thing when a Rockhall contributor who is a near-fanatical lover of the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio emailed me that I was being "laughed" at by someone who claimed Elvis Presley never even heard The Trio, let alone perform with them prior to his landmark Sun recordings. I mean, these facts have been sufficiently documented to the point that informed rock fans would dismiss or correct his remarks without my having to lock horns with someone I didn't want to call names. So, initially I just checked in on the forum and read the entries. As I suspected, corrective replies had already been posted. I chose not to "gang up" on our fellow Elvis fan and instead emailed him a friendly greeting along with some supportive info. Problem was that he stubbornly refused to back down, no matter what anyone told him. Most frustrating of all was his remark that we could believe our sources and he'd believe his. This despite the fact that he really had no true "sources" but Scotty Moore's book, and everyone knows that Scotty Moore was introduced to Elvis by Sam Phillips at Sun. No matter that historians and researchers had documented the 1954 pre-Sun concert at a Memphis used car lot where Elvis got on top of a flatbed-trailer stage and performed with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio. This fellow wouldn't believe anything like that from anyone who actually wasn't "there." Period. So, I decided to talk to people who had been!

Actually, I had first heard about Elvis and the Burnettes first-hand back in late 1960, shortly after I had pedaled my bike from a neighborhood record store to a friend's home with a record store bag hanging from the extended high-rise "motorcycle" handlebars I had put on my English racer. Having decided that Elvis Presley, Johnny Burnette and Bobby Darin were my favorite singers, I had only purchased Elvis' latest LP and single. This, surprisingly, caused my friend to accuse me of "not supporting the neighborhood." Then he walked me across the street and introduced me to a very handsome Johnny Burnette in the flesh!

From the Burnettes I had heard about how Elvis and them had known each other, played touch football together, worked at Crown Electric and even had a song ripped-off where Elvis sang it with just a few words having been changed. I learned of the rivalry that went all the way back to those early days. Not having previously known about the Rock'n Roll Trio, all of this impressed me very much, but it didn't lessen my love for Elvis Presley and his music.

(1/26/98 UPDATE: Contrary to written reports going back as early as 1956, both Johnny and Dorsey went to Catholic High School and did not attend Humes with Elvis. However, "Aunt Alberta," who did go to school with Elvis and ended up marrying Dorsey Burnette, clearly recalls the Burnette brothers regularlly hanging around the front lawn of Humes with their guitars and singing songs with a casual group of other young musicians that included Bill Black, Scotty Moore, and, for a song or two, Elvis Presley. But, no deep friendship developed. According to Howard A. DeWitt, author of SUN ELVIS: ELVIS PRESLEY IN THE FIFTIES, "Infact, Johnny didn't care for Presley. He found him shy and unable to defend himself.")

But neither Johnny nor Dorsey are around any longer for further verification. Nor is Elvis for that matter. But these accounts have been around long enough for Elvis to have discounted them had he never played with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio. The only things Rocky Burnette could tell me was that he had always heard that Elvis had sang and played guitar with The Trio, that he had wanted to join the band and that Dorsey had told him that the only lead singer for the Johnny Burnette Trio could be Johnny Burnette.

In December 1997, I managed to catch Paul Burlison on the telephone while he was on tour promoting his hot new TRAIN KEPT A-ROLLIN' cd, and I asked him about the performance at "Airways Used Cars." He might have "been there," but it hadn't been something he had recollected on for years. Now 69, Paul's recollection was fuzzy about when he DID share a stage with Elvis. Plus it was about 3am his time when I got the return call after a gig. Yet, as he confirmed again after the tour, what he was most certain about was that it wasn't at a place called Airways Used Cars but rather at J&S Motors at the corner of Airways and LaMar. He also remembered that Elvis sang a song about "take your finger out of it, it don't belong to you" which finished off with Elvis singing that he was "talking about my birthday cake." He chuckled as he thought about that song. And he said he remembered Elvis being on stage with him and Shelby Follin.

Paul also vaguely recalled that Johnny Burnette was also on stage. But whether it was a show where a bunch of different people got on stage at one time or another, ...or a Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio performance, he can't say for sure any longer. "Ask Robert Schaeffer," he told me, "he was a clean-up boy on the lot then. He was there, and he owns the place now. I'm sure he'd remember better than me." Well, after some telephone tag, I finally got to speak with Mr. Schaeffer. Now 67 years old, he remembered the Johnny Burnette Trio very well, and he remembered Elvis getting up on the flatbed trailer and performing a bit. "Elvis lived down the street then. And I remember he got turned down at first. But eventually he was up on the stage too." He knows Paul was on the stage then, and he thought he recalled Johnny Burnette also being on the stage ...but he too couldn't recall if that was with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio or not. But he also remembered Follin, "I won't forget that Shelby, because he was an Ernest Tubbs imitator, you know."

Ummm. I wondered if perhaps the 53+ years since then had caused fading memories of two separate events to become merged into one. * ( 1/20/98 UPDATE: Paul's memory was a lot better in 1978 when he was quoted in THE ROCK'N ROLL TRIO STORY: "Elvis was a quiet guy, nobody made much notice of him at first. ...He came down and hung out when we played in a used car lot. After an hour he asked us if he could sing in front of the band. So he did. Funny, though, he knew only two chords on guitar.") I've read before that, in addition to an in-studio performance, Elvis had actually gotten up on stage and performed during two separate KWEM "live" remote broadcasts prior to Sun Studio. One was with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio at a used cars lot. The other had been from a mall, featuring "Shelby Fowler" with Paul Burlison having also joined in. Paul remembered the appearance at George Kleins KWEM show. "Elvis didn't go over too big on that," he said matter-of-factly. But Paul couldn't recall the Shelby Follin show having been at a mall. As for Elvis having never heard nor seen The Trio perform because he was "too young" to get into nightclubs, Paul said, "Elvis got into any club he wanted to. He was out of high school." And to the assertion that Elvis didn't even know who they were, Paul remarked that Elvis came to their shows even when they didn't tell him about them. He also clearly remembered the time when he and the Burnettes were walking down the street and Elvis and Bill Black exited a building right in front of them: "Elvis said 'Uh Oh, The Daltons. Let's cross over to the other side.' Well, we all had a good laugh and talked for awhile. You know, I always had the feeling that Elvis was afraid of Dorsey." And it is a fact that Presley referred to the Trio as The Dalton Gang because of their lack of hesitation to duke it out, usually with some jealous boyfriends at a nightclub.

(In the Winter '96 issue of BLUE SUEDE NEWS, Howard A. DeWitt wrote; "Marcus Van Story, a Sun Record session musician, remembers a few years later going out with Elvis Presley to play a gig in Arkansas and across town The Rock 'n Roll Trio played in a bar where the patrons requested certain songs. 'After the fifth request for a Hank Williams' song,' Van Story remembered, 'Johnny Burnette got off the stage and beat the hell out of the guy making the constant requests.' Van Story continued: 'In all my years of playing I never ran into anybody tougher than the Burnette brothers.'" When I relayed this story to Thurley Burnette (Johnny's widow) prior to Paul & Rocky's gig at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas on 2/6/98, she laughed and said it more probably had been Dorsey, "But if he was playing across town how would he know this for sure. There's so many stories about them being rowdy, but they weren't mean. Maybe if they were sitting nearby and you did something stupid they might laugh at you and throw some bread at you, but they were more into having a good time.")

So. I had learned that Elvis had performed with members of the Trio, but I had no confirmation that he had actually joined the wild-rocking Trio itself during his formative period just prior to Sun Studio. Yet there's no question that his initial private recordings were hardly rockers. And when Sam Phillips invited him in, it was "disastrous" at first, with Elvis unhesitatingly singing every Dean Martin song he knew, as well as Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow and Billy Eckstine. Elvis tried just about everything, and nothing was really clicking until that break where Elvis began "fooling around" with "That's All Right (Mama)." And Elvis did say that definitive moment was more of a fluke than anything. Was that all it really was? It seemed very unlikely that Elvis could live in Memphis then, be interested in music and never had heard a happening band composed of people he knew and worked with. Considering how many who had been there had either died nor exercised those memories, I felt that it was now almost my duty to find someone who knew first hand whether this legendary musical crossing of paths had happened.

KWEM! That had to be the answer. Perhaps they had kept logs or tapes of these performances? Well, as I soon discovered, WKEM/KWEM has not existed for some time. Darn. I needed to find someone who could validate these facts or expose the myth.

BARBARA PITTMAN turned out to be the star witness. And I found her only when I thought of the Memphis Music Hall Of Fame. I called there one Saturday morning and just asked if there was anybody who might know for certain about Elvis having played with the Rock'n Roll Trio. I was told if I called back Monday and asked for Willie Pittman, the owner, he might be able to help me. Was this my last chance?

When I explained to Mr. Pittman that I was seeking first-hand confirmation that the Rock'n Roll Trio had been a direct influence upon Elvis Presley, he immediately said without hesitation: "Elvis Presley didn't invent Rock And Roll. Johnny and Dorsey Burnette invented Rockabilly!" And when I asked about the used cars lot performance, he told me it was common knowledge in Memphis that Elvis not only sang and played with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n Roll Trio then, but on other occasions as well, when he'd get up while they were playing nightclubs and join them for a song or two.

But how did he himself know this to be the truth? I explained I needed to talk to someone who had been there and knew this from personal experience, so that I could document it at the Rockhall forum. Had Elvis really performed with the Burnette Trio prior to recording "That's All Right (Mama)?"

"No question about it! My wife Barbara was there. She knew Elvis very well before he made it. She also knew the Burnettes. They all knew each other. And she also dated Elvis, even when he lived in Graceland." Wow, pay dirt. What used to be her name? "Why, Pittman," he answered, "I took her name. She's Barbara Pittman and she used to sing with Clyde Leoppard's Snarly Ranch Boys, and she also recorded at Sun."

Double Wow! In this search for Rock And Roll historical accuracy, I unknowingly came upon more rock history. As I was to learn after my initial Burnette-Elvis contact with Barbara Pittman, she herself is a Rockabilly Hall Of Fame inductee who is cited today as an influence by contemporary rockabilly females such as Kim Lenz, whose Jaguar bassist cites Dorsey Burnette and his 1957 Trio replacement Johnny Black. Unfortunately, I only have one song by Barbara in my "walls of music," and it isn't one of the three listed at the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame. A situation I intend to correct. On the UK LP of "Memphis Beat" Sun recordings, Barbara is described as "sounding like rocking Wanda and Janis and sobbing Connie Francis...made some good rockers"

(1/30/97 UPDATE: After having found an internet page by Jimmy Denson and emailed him a couple of days ago, I got a call from Mr. Denson today after he had visited this page. He not only confirmed how he had introduced Paul to Dorsey, he also told me how his family had also been close with the Presleys. Infact, he not only confirmed the J&S Auto show ("'Sambo' Barrom put that together with 'K-WAM'.)", at 70 he has a sharp memory and even remembers the day Elvis met the Burnette Brothers: "I was there watching. I know when it happened. All of 1946 my younger brother, Jesse Lee, was teaching guitar, singing and songwriting every day of the week to Dorsey Burnette, then in 1947 Johnny started with Jesse Lee for lessons every Saturday and Sunday. And Gladys Presley always used to tell Jesse Lee that after she saved up $12.95 to buy Elvis a Gene Autry Harmony guitar she wanted him to teach Elvis the guitar. That took about 5 months because Vernon didn't want to work. Well, last week of February,1948, Jesse Lee took on Elvis, and they met right there in apartment 227E Winchester. I watched the first lesson. Infact Elvis joined Jesse's group, The Golden Boys All Guitar Band, singing backgound behind Jesse Lee, Johnny and Dorsey. May 15, 1948, Elvis giged all afternoon with Bill and Johnny Black, plus the Burnette brothers and Jesse Lee on the front porch of the Black home on Alabama, Lauderdale Courts. Then Elvis cried like a baby because his mother wouldn't let him off the Lauderdale Courts property to play with the Burnettes at Millington Naval Base. He used to cry a lot. Well, after they played there, after the show, the Burnettes started fighting with the sailors. - Dorsey used to terrify Elvis. He'd chase him around, and Gladys trusted us to take care of her boy, so I talked to Dorsey and made him back off. But Dorsey was bad news at the time. He'd stop cars and fight 5 or 6 boys at a time. As a boxer he knocked down my hero, Charlie Jerome, who just died 3 days ago. He was a world contender. Nobody could get Charlie Jerome, but Dorsey caught him. He was bad, the Mid South Welterweight Champion in 1949. At 16 years old he was knocking out all the men." - Jim Denson is also insistent that the Presleys arrived in Memphis long before the 1948 date most often given. - Subsequently Jesse Lee Denson himself returned my call and confirmed how after Gladys Presley bought a guitar to replace Elvis' cardboard one purchased the previous year in Mississippi, he began teaching Elvis guitar. And, that Elvis was indeed very familiar with the Burnettes, who were advanced performers, having begun on their own at age 5.)

Anyway, about that Elvis song the Burnettes were ripped off for, one of the first songs the Trio wrote when they formed in '53 was "Oh Baby Babe," which quickly became a real crowd pleaser. But, before they could record it, Elvis recorded the virtually identical "Baby, Let's Play House" in February of 1955. Credited to Arthur Gunter of Nashville, Elvis' record replaces the then-racier "I just want to make love to you" with a cleaned-up "let's play house." Johnny's widow Thurla told me back in the 60s that Elvis knew full well that it was their song because he had heard them perform it. When I asked Paul about it and told him too often I'd read that THEY had copied Elvis' recording, he said "I don't know why anybody would think we'd want to sound like Elvis back then. He wasn't big or anything back then, we were just being ourselves. And I used to listen to radio all the time back then and I never heard of Arthur Gunter nor 'Baby, Let's Play House' until after Elvis made his record. And back then we didn't know much about suing or songwriters' rights. I guess we just took it as a compliment that he was copying us."

HEAR "OH BABY BABE" LIVE!

By HANK ZEVALLOS, January 19, 1998

Come Here

Visit my home page, THE HANKSTER, and email me at publiceye@tminet.com

At last! An Official Burnette Site: Burnette House. Also read memories of The Rock'n Roll Trio by rock legends CARL PERKINS and RONNIE HAWKINS plus some PRESS!

Catch on the road with Paul Burlison

rockers since THIS page was found on "Search" minus the front door late 2/9/98

ELVISLINKS:

ELVIS LIVES IN EVIL LEVIS. Anne Stinehart's delightful tribute to Elvis Presley.

BIG ELVIS - A Thousand Points Of Elvis. Tim-Elvis provides quite a service here by putting together every Elvis site you'd ever want to find. Tim-Elvis also gives you a good idea of what to expect from the various Elvis web sites.