O LINKS UPDATED and ROY ORBISON from BLACK AND WHITE NIGHT

Roy Orbison - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and New Official Site - updated along with early post about Roy in our Archive.



FROM A FULL LENGTH ALBUM/ VIDEO called BLACK AND WHITE NIGHT which is featuring as background artists JAMES BURTON, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, Tom Waits, kd lang, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, JD Souther, T Bone Burnett, Steven Soles, and Jennifer Warnes. (Recorded September 30, 1987).

(386) JAMES BURTON INTERVIEW and on SHINDIG

JAMES BURTON, studio guitarist extraordinaire worked with - almost everybody (even me) - but is most famous for working with Elvis Presley. Writer James Calemine with the Swampland site featured this interview with Burton in 2007.
Here's James playing on Shindig in 1965:

QUOTE FROM "LIFE" BY KEITH RICHARDS with JAMES FOX

KEITH RICHARDS "LIFE"
pages 766-767 Large Print version (Don't you just love that?!)

"Eventually I played with almost all the survivors among my childhood heroes, like JAMES BURTON, the EVERLYS, THE CRICKETS, MERLE HAGGARD, JOHN LEE HOOKER and GEORGE JONES, with whom I recorded "Say It's Not You." The award I was proud of was when Mick (Jagger) and I were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992, because it was signed by Sammy Cahn on his deathbed. It took me years to appreciate just how great was the art of Tin Pan Alley writing - I used to dismiss it or it went straight through me. But when I became a songwriter I could appreciate the construction and the skill of those guys..."

KEITH RICHARDS with JAMES FOX
Little, Brown, and Company
C 2010 by Mindless Records, LLC

(328) JAMES BURTON GUITAR MASTER

JAMES BURTON played guitar for Rick Nelson first, and by 1963 he was my favorite, working for me as a session man. He used to borrow the XKG Jaguar that I bought from song writing residuals and take it for a little ride.

I played demos I did for Elvis and when he heard Burton on them, he said, "Wes, would you mind if I used Burton too?" James started working for Elvis by 1969 and did so famously!

We're linking to THE OFFICIAL JAMES BURTON WEB SITE - He's still so busy! And he now has his own charitable foundation as well.

(327) ELVIS PRESLEY THOUGHT THE WORLD of RICK NELSON

Elvis said to me, "Wes, Rick is a true person."

Elvis liked Rick Nelson as a human being and that's why he made friends with him and invited him to play football on his team, EP Enterprises. Johnny Rivers is the person who first introduced me to Rick Nelson and his brother David Nelson. Soon I was playing on the team with Rick.

This song MAD MAD WORLD which came out in 1963 still has so much innocence in it, but by the end of 1963 we as American's would loose our innocence...



Earlier we blogged on the contribution of songwriter JERRY FULLER on Rick's career. Rick also recorded songs written by JOHNNY and DORSEY BURNETT like this one... and by the way, two great studio musicians who worked a bit for me (I like to say they were once part of my "Wrecking Crew") and went on to back ELVIS PRESLEY as musicians are on this recording, Joe Osborne, and James Burton.

My old friends P.J. PROBY and JAMES BURTON talk about RICK NELSON

"Hello Mary Lou" is maybe the song most associated with Ricky Nelson... It was written by Gene Pitney

MUSICIANS HALL OF FAME INAUGURAL - NOVEMBER 26, 2007

Friends, we are posting this notice for the new Musicians Hall of Fame, to let you know they are honoring some of those "side men," "session men," and "studio musicians" (Christine says "And where are the women?") that a lot of people don't know about. They are opening in a couple days with a big ceremony to open the museum and give these guys awards for their work.

Now James Burton was one of the musicians who worked for me in the studio before he went on to be Elvis Presley's and Scotty Moore and the Blue Moon Boys, as you know from reading this blog, was very much a part of Elvis' early success. We posted on them earlier, but to recap, Scotty is the man called "The Guitar That Changed The World." His licks such as what you hear on "Heartbreak Hotel," were key to the sound associated with Elvis. Elvis was just one of the Blue Moon Boys before it became "Elvis and The Blue Moon Boys."

Let's give a hand to these musicians whose life work it has been to give us the soundtracks of our lives!

Wes Bryan and Christine Tryzna

Link above to the MUSICIANS HALL OF FAME'S web site!