Billy Joe Burnette 

Billy Joe Barnette arrived in Hollywood in August, 1964. He had an appointment with Johnny Burnette, who had just started his own label. Remembered mainly as the crooner of hits like “Dreamin'” and “You're Sixteen,” Johnny, along with his brother Dorsey is more admired for earlier Rockabilly records. Flops at the time, they are now considered the best of the ilk. “You look enough like me to be my brother,” were Burnette's first words to Barnette. And so a plan developed to record the youngest “brother”, and on that day Billy Joe Burnette was born. Johnny was to go on a fishing trip the next day and upon his return the work would begin. On that trip Johnny Burnette died. A larger vessel hit his boat in Clear Lake, CA and he fell overboard and drowned. But the new family member got to do a record. Dorsey saw that Johnny's promise was kept. Magic Lamp Records then became dormant, leaving nobody to push the first release by Billy Joe Burnette. But this was not the young man's first record. There had nearly been a hit under his real name. Billy became friends with producer Ed Russell that was in California at the time and after 30 years of friendship decided to work on an album project. Ed came up with the ideal to record Teddy Bear a song that Billy co-wrote. The rest is history. This story songs is a smash you decide if Ed is right or wrong.   

   6/21/1941 to 12/29/2016

Eddie Ray writes a song about his close and dear friend Billy Joe Burnette. Eddie Ray  also wrote and produced  Billy's new 10 song album soon to be released on Castle Records

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