The Rock and Roll Trio - Ending

Ending

Johnny Burnette died in a boating accident, Clear Lake, California, in August 1964, while Dorsey continued to write songs and remained successful in this field. He also continued performing and reached the US country chart with 15 minor hits during the 1970s, before he too died of a heart attack in August 1979.

Dorsey’s death may well have prompted Paul Burlison to return to the music scene in the 1980s, first with Johnny Black and Tony Austin in a recreation of The Rock and Roll Trio. In 1997, he cut his first ever solo LP “Train Kept A-Rollin” on Sweetfish Records as a tribute to The Rock and Roll Trio. The LP contained eleven tracks, three of which, "Train Kept A-Rollin'", "Lonesome Tears in My Eyes", and "Lonesome Train (on a Lonesome Track)", had been featured on The Rock and Roll Trio’s original 1957 album. Among the backing musicians were Rocky Burnette (Johnny’s son) and Billy Burnette (Dorsey’s son).

When asked about his post-Trio relationship with the Burnette Brothers, Paul Burlison made the following comments, “A year after I did that short tour with Johnny, I was working on my car one day and my wife called me to the phone. It was Dorsey and he told me that Johnny was missing out on a lake 109 Miles from San Francisco. He asked me to come out there and I left on the midnight flight. …….. We hadn’t been too close since all the trouble, although Johnny and I had been real close. After that there wasn’t two weeks went by that Dorsey and I didn’t talk to each other until his death in 1979.”

Paul Burlison died on September 27, 2003 in Horn Lake, Mississippi after a long battle with cancer. The pioneering contribution to the genre by all three of the original members of The Rock and Roll Trio has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.