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‘Devil’s Disciple,’ which documents
Burns’ second stab at country music
stardom in the 1960s, picks up where ‘A
Real Cool Cat’ ends – or rather three years
later in 1959, when having, in his own
assessment, hit rock bottom, Burns began
to claw his way back onto the scene with a
single for the San Antonio-based
independent label TNT. Following from
that record, ‘Devil’s Disciple’traces Burns’
comeback through his 1961-63 recordings
for United Artists and his final 1968
session for MGM, which was left
unreleased at the time and finally sees the
light of day here.
As Andrew Brown writes in his
excellent notes to ‘A Real Cool Cat,’ Sonny
Burns was born Clyde Burns, Jr. in Lufkin
in deep East Texas on September 19, 1930
and apparently spent his formative years
north of Lufkin in Nacogdoches before
moving to Houston, part of the larger
migration from farm and town into city that
played so big a part in the city’s golden
era of country music in the early post-war
years. We know little of his early musical
influences beyond the claim by long-time
local scene guitarist Harold Sharp that he
and the teenaged Burns were buddies and
that he taught the latter how to play guitar.
In 1950, Burns was playing lead guitar for
Eddie Noack and soon after had headed to
nearby, wide-open Galveston, where he
further honed his skills as a guitarist and
also began to sing. By 1952, Burns was
leading his own bands in Galveston and
the following year caught the ear of Jack
and Neva Starns of Beaumont, who’d
started their own Starday record label in
mid-1953.
Burns was one of the label’s earliest
signees and he recorded his first single for
the Starnses in the summer of 1953. His
second release was his version of Noack’s
Too Hot To Handle.
It was a regional hit,
big enough to spawn several major label
covers. The good looking, charismatic
Burns became the Starns’ most promising
performer. As Brown notes, Pappy Daily,
who became one of the key players at
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