There’s only one electric instrument worth discussing, says James Burton, the veteran guitarist behind Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris.
BY JOEL McIVER
“THE FIRST GUITAR that Leo Fender tried to lay on me was a Stratocaster,” James Burton says with a chuckle. At 83 years, he’s fit and well, with memories like very few other musicians. “I said, ‘No, man, I’m not gonna take it!’ The Stratocaster’s for younger kids. They like the whammy bar and all.”
So no Strats in the Burton collection, then? “Well, it just depends on what you prefer,” he reasons. “Some people like a fretboard that’s flat, but I like a little bit of roundness to it, so for me, there’s only one guitar to talk about: the Fender Telecaster. You know, Leo Fender was a wonderful guy. I met him many years ago, even before I went to work with Ricky Nelson. Leo assured me that whatever I wanted, it would be no problem: he’d take care of it. And he did.”
Indeed, as far back as 1961, Burton was tearing up that slightly rounded fretboard on Ricky Nelson’s “Hello, Mary Lou” with a solo that left young listeners speechless. (One of those kids was the rocking knight of the realm, Sir Brian May, who regularly cites Burton as an influence.) Check out that solo if you don’t know it already: it leaps from the speakers at 1:04 with a flurry of string bends and sassy popped notes, sounding nothing like its 62 years of age.
Born in 1939 in Dubberly, Louisiana, Buton was a self-taught guitar prodigy who played on the Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport as a teenager. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began his career with Nelson and recorded numerous sessions. One of them was Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit “Susie Q,” a tune Burton co-wrote and which was timed perfectly to assist with the birth of rock and roll. He swiftly became an in-demand guitarist, songwriter and bandleader. As a young, hotshot guitarist, Burton recorded with Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, the Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Sinatra, Buffalo Springfield, Townes Van Zandt and a litany of other 1960s greats before he joined Elvis Presley in 1968 as leader of the TCB (Taking Care of Business) Band. Hot as a pistol after that year’s televised comeback special, Elvis, the King was dominating Las Vegas with an extravagant live residency.
Burton’s profile went stratospheric after Elvis began to include the command “Play it, James!” in each show, just before the guitarist ripped a spectacular solo — with
