In his song “I Want to Be a Sideman” Dave Frishberg takes on the persona of a musician who wants a career in music but doesn’t want the responsibility of being a leader or a star.
“I want to be a sideman/Just a highly qualified man/A real professional pride man/Old indispensible me”. Frishberg was writing about the world of jazz where being a sideman can be pretty rewarding, jazz is collaborative music. However in the pop/rock world, where egos are bigger and everything revolves around the star, it can be a good job but backup musicians often long for the fame and fortune they are helping others achieve. The more talented ones sometimes break through to stardom but others relish their role in the background. It has its advantages; you don’t have to tour unless you want to, you are not stuck with playing one genre of music, you get to be a part of the careers of many different stars and, because there is much less pressure, you are less prone to burn-out.
While backup musicians don’t get the fame, music aficionados do know the good ones and will follow their careers. A record with great backup musicians will not only sound better, it will be more collectable for hard-core fans.
Guitarist James Burton is probably the ultimate sideman. He played with virtually everybody, in every genre of popular music. He rarely got credit for his work, but the top musicians love him and he is now a cult hero.
He was born in Dubberly, in the northern part of Louisiana, near Shreveport, the ideal place to be exposed all kinds of music from blues to zydeco to country and pop, Burton absorbed it all. He glommed on to the Fender Telecaster at an early age but he had no one to show him how to play it so he listened to records and learned the licks. He developed his own unique style holding a standard flat pick between his thumb and index finger and a steel fingerpick on his middle finger.
He started playing professionally in 1953 when he was only 14. He was in the backup band for the legendary Louisiana Hayride radio show on KWKH in Shreveport where be accompanied some of the biggest country stars of the day.
In 1955 he formed a band with Dale Hawkins (Ronnie Hawkins’ cousin) and in 1957 they went to the KWKH studio to record a song written by Hawkins and Burton called Suzie Q. Hawkins wrote the lyrics (probably in about 5 minutes, they’re pretty basic) while Burton contributed the guitar riff intro and the searing solo that drove the record to the top of the charts. Burton took the riff from Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning (as played by Hubert Sumlin) and reversed it, deftly combining blues and country into what was later dubbed swamp rock. He got no credit as a writer or a player but he didn’t seem to mind. Suzie Q is still considered a classic that has been recorded many times, most notably by Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1968.
By his late teens he was getting quite a reputation in music circles. He joined up with rocker Bob Luman, who was just starting a very promising career. Their manager got them a gig in Hollywood to make a movie which turned out to be a dud but Ricky Nelson heard them rehearsing and immediately got Burton to join his band.
Nelson had a major label recording contract and a weekly spot on his father’s TV show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and Burton was right beside him the whole time. He even lived in Ozzie Nelson’s home for two years. The first Nelson record he played lead guitar on was Believe What You Say, a song written by Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. For that session Burton came up with the idea of replacing the first four strings on his guitar with banjo strings. That gave him an extra “unwound” string, more clarity in the high end and a greater ability to bend the strings. Believe What You Say wasn’t Nelson’s biggest hit but the guitar solo made it legendary, causing quite a sensation among guitar fans, especially in England.
In 2001 when Keith Richards inducted Burton into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, he declared “I never bought a Ricky Nelson record; I bought a James Burton record”.
With all the hit records Burton’s career as a side man started to take off. Between Nelson’s gigs he found time to work with Dean Martin, Bobby Darin and The Everly Brothers. In 1965 Johnny Cash asked him to join the band of a new TV show called Shindig so he left Nelson and went out on his own once again backing up an array of big stars.
That’s where things got really crazy; the increased TV exposure made him the most in-demand session player ever. He enjoyed working in the studio playing backup, doing jingles, television commercials whatever. According to his web site biography Burton was doing four or five sessions a day, sometimes 25 a week. He rarely got credit and didn’t keep track so even he doesn’t know all the records he played on, it’s all a big blur. He worked with artists as diverse as Nat King Cole, Merle Haggard, Johnny Mathis, Buffalo Springfield and Frank Sinatra. His work with Haggard and Buck Owens helped develop the Bakersfield Sound in country music.
In 1968 Elvis Presley asked him to join his comeback tour but he was too busy working with Frank Sinatra. He did join Elvis a year later and stayed with him until Elvis’ death in 1977.
During this period Burton continued to work with just about everybody in the business, in any genre of music. It’s easier to list who he didn’t work with; most notably Bob Dylan. Dylan did ask him to join his first touring group in 1969 but Burton was too busy with Elvis Presley so turned him down.
In 1972 he was contacted by Gram Parsons to be on a project he was planning with Emmylou Harris. Burton played on two albums including Grievous Angel, another flat out classic that set the standard for country rock. When Parsons died in 1973 Harris was asked to form a “hot band” and go on tour. She played it smarter than Dylan; she organized her tour so it didn’t conflict with Elvis just so she could have James Burton in her hot band.
When Elvis died in 1977 John Denver was quick to grab Burton to record an album. Burton remained with him for 15 years but during this time he also played and recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits among others.
Today, while he still does not have the name recognition as the hundreds, or thousands of stars he played for, he tours under his own name, mostly in Europe and is an icon in his home town of Shreveport.
Really, could you imagine a better career? How do you get to do that? In an interview with Guitar Player magazine in 1984 Burton said “you have to let your playing breathe; I think you have to play it like a lyric. It’s not how much you play … it’s usually what you don’t play that makes it”.
Frishberg wrote; I want to be a sideman/Just an ordinary sideman/A go along for the ride man/Responsibility free.
James Burton may have felt that way sometimes but he is far from ordinary and certainly didn’t just go along for the ride.