Boisterous singer was early pioneer of rockabilly music
The Washington Post
Sonny Burgess, a boisterous rockabilly singer and guitarist who toured with Johnny Cash and counted Bruce Springsteen among his admirers, died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Little Rock, Ark. He was 88.
A family friend, Henry Boyce, confirmed the death but did not specify a cause. Mr. Burgess had recently been treated for a fall.
Rockabilly historian Colin Escott described Mr. Burgess’ 1956 debut record, “Red Headed Woman,” and its flip side, “We Wanna Boogie,” as “punk before punk, thrash before thrash.” It became known as one of the rawest singles of the early rock era.
Though their music was classified as rockabilly, Mr. Burgess’ band, the Pacers, owed more to the horndriven jump of R&B of the 1950s than to the more acoustic sounds of the era’s country music.
A trumpet player, Jack Nance, played unison riffs with Mr. Burgess’ guitar while pianist Kern Kennedy drove the tempo with his pounding boogie-woogie piano. Mr. Burgess’ singing style — gruff and often growling — recalled such urban blues shouters as Joe Turner and Smiley Lewis.
“We Wanna Boogie,” about a farm boy’s night on the town — “runnin’ like wildfire and hittin’ that jug” — featured an explosive, over-amped and chaotic guitar solo from Mr. Burgess.
The Pacers put on a show as wild as their records, forming a human pyramid and often dragging each other across the stage by their instruments. When Mr. Burgess attempted to dye his hair blond with peroxide, it turned bright red, enticing him to purchase a new, all-red wardrobe.
“We had one of the greatest stage shows there was,” he once said. “It was like a threering circus. People couldn’t watchjust one of us.”
Albert Austin Burgess was born May 28, 1929, on a farm near Newport, Ark.. His parents were cotton farmers. He learned guitar from an uncle who played fiddle at local dances. As a teenager, Mr. Burgess listened to the Grand Ole Opry and Memphis rhythm-and-blues station WDIA and aspired to be either a musician or a professional baseballplayer.
After Army service during the Korean War, he returned to cotton farming in Arkansas and started a dance band named the Moonlighters, which he rechristened the Pacers in 1955. A gig with Elvis Presley persuaded him to audition with Sun Records, the Memphis label that launched the careers of Mr. Presley and Mr. Cash.