NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS
THE BERLIN TAPES are now also available from CD Baby:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/billydonburns
04/01/08 - Berlin Germany
THE BERLIN TAPES are now available!
The album will be stores in Germany on May 15, but it can now be ordered directly from the label website: www.rockin-h.de
03/20/08 - Berlin, Germany
THE BERLIN TAPES will finally be released on May 15, 2008!
More Info on the Rockin' H Records MySpace Page:
www.myspace.com/rockinhrecords
NEW RECORD DEAL!!!
July 18 - Berlin, Germany
German producer Helmut Hamm has made a deal with Outlaw Billy Don Burns for the release of a new CD on his Rockin‘ H Records label.
Recordings will be made during Billy Don‘s ongoing tour in Germany.
The release of the new album is planned for October.
July 7, 8 & 9 - Nottingham England
BILLY DON BURNS will be performing at Europes Number 1 American Lifestyle Event held annually in the heart of the UK. BR549, Carlene Carter, Guitar Great Albert Lee, are just a few among many acts from around the World which will be Headlining this Awesome Show.
Americana-International
BILLY DON BURNS:
Likes:
Rick Rubin who signed Johnny Cash because he didn't have a label.
Sex, Drugs and Rock and Hoes
Driving fast and Laying Low
Dislikes:
Rick Blackburn the piece of shit who was head of CBS Nashville and dropped Johnny Cash from the label.
People who think that they are hot shit.
Men over 20 who still live with their mother. Men over 50 who won't take care of their mother
Music:
Please
I ain't trying to say that I am anything. The truth is I am the least of the least. My greatest moments that come to mind are:
1 The birth of my two children, Jesse James Burns and Natalie Ruth Burns
2 When Johnny Cash sent me a hand written letter of congratulations
3 Willie Nelson recording one of my songs
4 Getting the chance to produce Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard and Tanya Tucker
5 When Porter Wagoner introduced me on the Grand Ole Opry
6 When I was a guest on late night NYC raido with Joey Rheynolds and Les Paul called up and talked about my music, his music and what ever.
7 When Harlon Howard signed me as a staff writer with his publishing company
8 Getting a 4-star review from German writer Jorg Feyer in Rolling Stone Magazine
9 When my old friend The Late Great Mack Vickery called me up and asked if I would like to spend the weekend in Memphis with him and the killer Jerry Lee Lewis.
10 Hearing The Late Great Earnest Tubb introduce me to sing on his stage
WHO I'D LIKE TO MEET:
Earma La Duce
Theres a lot of talk these days about outlaws in country music. Whether part of the new breed or the old guard, the problem has always been if you have to proclaim yourself an outlaw, youre probably not one Arkansas native Billy Don Burns doesnt have to proclaim himself anything. His worn-out Harley-Davidson t-shirt and dirty red bandana arent part of some trendy corporate-sponsored fashion-statement/marketing campaign. And when putting his songs down on record, no slick, young, next-big-thing Music Row producer need apply, thank you. Billy Don needs only one thing to get his message across: an open-minded listener unafraid of the dark side--a place Billy Don admittedly knows all too well. These are not your run-of-the-mill, radio-friendly ditties written by some publisher-appointed committee in a cushy Nashville office suite. Scan the titles: Runnin Drugs out of Mexico, Dark Side of the Spoon, Full Blown Addict--these are the often harrowing true-life experiences that have poured out on paper, and on record, in a flood of nerve-rattling, mind-bending emotion. If youre looking for the primrose path, look elsewhere, friend. But if youre brave enough to handle it, just push play on any of the 13 tracks on Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls, give Billy Don three or four minutes of your undivided attention (no problem there, youll be fully involved thirty seconds in), and youll know just what a real honest-to-God outlaw country singer sounds like.
Its real life, says Billy Don. It may be a little darker than people like to recognize, but its there. I wish my life was more of an Ozzie and Harriet kind of life, but it aint.
Billy Don Burns was born in the community of 56 in Stone County, Arkansas. A family friend, songwriter Jimmie Driftwood (Battle of New Orleans", Tennessee Stud) was Billy Dons mothers schoolteacher, and inspired the naturally-talented youngster to pursue a singing career. While serving in the US Army, he won a talent competition (his trophy was presented to him by fellow serviceman--and My Three Sons TV star--Don Grady). Billy Don left the Army in 1970 and moved to California, where he bought a new guitar and began performing in clubs. In 1972, Wanda Jacksons steel guitar player, Lynn Owsley, endorsed Billy Don so that he could move into a musician's boarding house in Nashville. By 1973, he was portraying Hank Williams at the Opryland USA theme park, and soon had his songs cut by the likes of country legends Connie Smith and Mel Tillis.
In 1975, he formed the Travis Brothers with Jimmy Getzen, and recorded a gospel album. He was also performing around various Nashville clubs, opening for acts such as Boots Randolph and Ronnie Prophet. Billy Don toured North America throughout the early part of the decade and then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton proclaimed March 27th, 1983, Billy Don Burns Day. In the early 1980s, he was engaged for a time to singer Lorrie Morgan. In 1984, the pair recorded a duet, New Commitments, which they performed on The Nashville Network.
By 1990 things were becoming decidedly darker for Billy Don, both professionally and personally, as involvement in drugs began to overtake his life and interfere with his musical career. Still, Billy Don continued recording, touring and working with other artists on various projects. In 1987, he produced a gospel album for Johnny Paycheck and later recorded a live album for the Take This Job and Shove It singer, who was an inmate at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Ohio. Due to legal entanglements, both albums remain unreleased to this day.
By the mid-90s, conditions were improving for Billy Don as artists including Willie Nelson and Sammy Kershaw began recording his songs. In 1995, his debut album Long Lost Highway was a critical, if not commercial, success. And in 1996, Billy Don and his frequent co-writer Hank Cochran topped the Americana music chart with the brilliant Desperate Men, which unseated Johnny Cashs Unchained from the No. 1 spot in 1997. Although at the time (to the chagrin of promoters and fellow musicians alike), Billy Don tried--unsuccessfully--to prevent his own album from overtaking that of his heros, the Man in Black graciously faxed him a handwritten note to congratulate him on the achievement. On 2004s Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls, Billy Don pays tribute to Johnny Cash with a rendition of his 1957 hit, Give My Love to Rose.
It was one of the first Cash songs I learned as a kid. My mother bought that album, and something about it touched me then. I felt like it was one everybody hadnt done a lot.
In 2002, Billy Don Burns released the critically-acclaimed Train Called Lonesome, featuring musical support from the Reno Brothers (Don and Dale) and longtime musical associate Jeff Williams, plus backing vocals by John Carter Cash. The lead-off track on Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls is the revved-up rocker Mississippi, co-written by Billy Don with Hank Cochran and featuring guest vocalist Tanya Tucker.
Though his heroes and friends are ever-present with him on record, it is perhaps the other troubled souls to whom his songs will always mean the most; those whose lives are lived out of the spotlight and in the shadow of some dark, desperate secret. It is those shadows Billy Don Burns knows all too well--and his music is the light that shines on them, making them real, but ultimately offering hope, a voice, and a way out of the darkness.
Its been a rollercoaster all the way. Every time I play these songs, I hear, Man, you wrote that song for me. You told my story. Theres a lot of lost souls out there.