The Rock and Roll Trio - Formation

Formation

The Burnette brothers were keen amateur boxers and became Golden Gloves champions. In 1949, Dorsey met Paul Burlison, also a Golden Gloves champion, at an amateur boxing tournament in Memphis. The two became firm friends, and through this friendship Burlison would also meet Johnny Burnette. All three had an interest in music, and in 1951 they began playing together at the hillbilly nightspots on the outskirts of Memphis, both as a trio and as a part of other groups. In these early days, they played a mixture of country and bluegrass, not untainted with cottonpatch blues. In the honkytonks in and around Memphis the Trio would often play an upbeat country and blues so that the patrons had music to do the 1940-50's bop and jitterbug, popular at the time. And the sound later called rockabilly, which they perfected in their 1956 Coral records album.

Johnny and Dorsey Burnette were reported to be early performers on the Saturday Night Jamboree, which was a local stage show held every Saturday night at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium in downtown Memphis in 1953-54. The show was founded by Joe Manuel, who had been a popular Hillbilly radio star of the 1930s and 1940s. In 1952 or 1953, they formed a group with Burlison playing lead guitar, Dorsey playing stand-up bass and Johnny playing rhythm guitar and taking the vocal lead. Occasionally they were joined by steel guitarist Albert Vescovo and by fiddler Tommy Seeley. With this line-up and at this time, the group may have been known as the Rhythm Rangers.

A contemporary poster from the Von Theater in Boonville, Tennessee, which advertised The Dixieland Jamboree, puts as the top of the bill, Johnny Burnett & his “Rhythm Rangers” and describes him as A VON Recording Artist from Memphis, Tenn.. Second on this bill is Hayden Thomson and his “Southern Melody Boys”, who are described as Just Back from WSM Nashville Tenn. and Ernest Tubb Jamboree.