5 Questions with Husky Burnette

1. Reading thru your bio. I noticed that you have some family history in rockabilly tell the readers a little about that ….

Well, the whole family on the Burnette side plays at least one instrument. Johnny Burnette and Dorsey Burnette, of the Johnny Burnette Rock N Roll Trio, are my 3rd cousins. I never got a chance to hang out with them which is a shame. I can just imagine what it would’ve been like to hang out and jam one good time with them! I’ve heard lots of stories about them and lots from my uncle and great uncle about my folks traveling from Chattanooga to Memphis in the 50s and 60s to visit “the family” and old quotes from Grandpa, like how “his boy is in a band…plays music. Supposed to be purdy good at it”. The great uncle I spoke of used to load his piano in the back of a pickup and have my great grandfather drive him around town here, playing rockabilly and boogie woogie tunes for tips til they drew a crowd. I guess it’s in the blood.

2. Who turned you on to the sound of a cigarbox guitar ?

Who knows who turned me on to the sound, really. I’ve always dug the sound of any unorthodox hillbilly instrument. I’ve plucked on them before, never owned one until recently. The first time I actually got to play one for any length of time was with Jim Mitchell (owner-operator for Cigar City Guitars) and Nick Redditt (Mojo Medicine Show on savingcountrymusic.com). I can blame their asses for getting me hooked on playing cbg’s as well as endorsed by Jim’s Cigar City Guitars.

3. Do consider yourself a singer or a storyteller ?

I don’t consider myself a singer… definitely not a good singer! I’d go with storyteller. I’ve always been into the countrified folky storytelling singer/songwriters. Roger Alan Wade, Guy Clark, Mississippi John Hurt, Gram Parsons, Kristofferson, Townes, the list goes on. So when i started writing blues tunes, i wrote 100% about real things in my life, no fiction, a real story. Of course, everyone has songs that are made up stories, but they come from somewhere ya know? Those guys influenced my lyric writing as much or more than anyone. If I can take my bad times and struggles and turn them into good-time, fun, enjoyable tunes then it was all worth it.

4. Any good road stories you’d like to share ?

You want wholesome? Dangerous? Violent? Plum crazy? I suppose the tour bus driver for Exodus and Malevolent Creation trying to run our van over in Chicago is a good one…but then there’s the guy I knocked out in Orlando for breaking in our motel room…or me and Roger Alan Wade running around motels in Nashville in socks and barefoot… Or me and Tonky Ponk jamming with Leon Russell’s band backstage after the show in Maryville,TN…And Tonky Ponk leaving his underwear at a biker clubhouse down in Georgia.
Screw it. There’s too many stories…

5. What are your thought about Hank Williams not being a member of the Grand Ole Opry even thought they use his name and image in promotions etc.. ?

It’s rude, crude and unacceptable. Hank Williams IS country, so what’s the hold-up??? I just think it’s wrong on so many levels….

anything else you’d like to share with the readers ?

Ill be on an east coast tour all of july…FL/AL/GA run in august.
I have a new EP (possible split) coming very soon and also a full length entitled Face Down In The Dirt both pcoming this year