Listening to a lot of 50's rockabilly, Johnny Burnette vocally stands head and shoulders above most of the fray. In my opinion perhaps only Elvis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly and perhaps Eddie Cochran sang with the force and excitement he did. Listen to "Lonesome Tears in My Eyes" and you will see John Lennon learned alot from Johnny Burnette. Of course Johnny Burnette, like Elvis and Gene, was fortunate to have phenomenal guitarist backing him up. Although there is controversy surrounding it, I think it is nearly universally accepted now that guitarist was studio wiz Grady Martin and not Paul Burlison playing on the overwhelming majority of those classic Rockabilly Trio tracks. Here is Grady Martin's solo on the Johnny Burnette track "Lonesome Train on a Lonesome Track." After Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup, Grady Martin may be the 3rd most influential rockabilly guitarist of that era despite never really having received credit or recognition for playing on those tracks.
A couple of notes about the solo. Note that the chord progression not a typical 12 bar blues. Also the majority of the solo is in the G blues scale. I had some difficulty figuring out exactly what was being played in bar 10 but I think what I transcribed is fairly accurate.
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| Grady Martin |
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| Johnny Burette |
