Johnny Burnette's Rock 'n' Roll Trio

Left to right - Paul Burlison, Johnny Burnette, and Dorsey Burnette

With lead guitarist Paul Burlison, and brother Dorsey, Johnny Burnette founded the pioneering, but largely overlooked rockabilly group the Johnny Burnette Rock 'n' Roll Trio in the early 50s. although they never enjoyed national acclaim, the group produced some of the wildest rockabilly of the era.

Paul Burlison was born February 4, 1929. At age ten he was inspired and taught by a black man a finger picking down home style of blues. Each day Burlison would wait from this man, whose name he never knew to pass home from work.

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After his discharge from the Navy, Burlison played with Clyde Leoppard and the Snearly Ranch Boys and was on the radio in 1949 with Don Paul. He met the Burnettes about 1949 through their mutual interest in boxing.

That year he would join the Shelby Follin Band, and for a few months he and bandmate Smokey Joe Baugh performed with Howlin' Wolf on radio KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas. Burlinson played with Follin until 1954.

Johnny Burnette and his brother, Dorsey were from Memphis and loved boxing almost as much as they loved singing. When they were unable to make a living from boxing they formed  a trio with Paul Burlison while still in high school. In 1952 all three worked as electricians for the Crown Electric Company, which later hired a truck driver named Elvis Presley. Officially formed in 1953, the trio auditioned for Sam Phillips's Sun Records following the local success of Presley's "That's All Right".  Although they weren't signed, they perservered. Hard work led them to the Hideway Club in Middleton, Tennessee where they became regulars.They played there with Doc (Junius P.) McQueen band from 1954 to February 1956. Their first record, "You're Undecided" was a country song on the Von label from Bonneville, MS, almost a year before the first Elvis single