7 / 12
Starday not long after Burns’ signing, told
historian Martin Hawkins that,
“Sonny
Burns was a fine, fine singer. His
recordings sold well, too, consistently. We
always had advance orders on them. He
outsold George Jones by a mile. In fact,
when we had them duet on a couple of
discs, it was to help George’s career, not
Sonny’s.”
Don Pierce, who became Daily’s
partner in the label after the Starnses
bowed out, added,
“We really did consider
Sonny to be our number one shot.”
Burns followed
Too Hot To Handle
with
morality tale ballads like the classic
Waltzing With Sin
and
A Place For Girl’s
Like You
, but as good as he was, the timing
and material were wrong - Elvis, rockabilly
and rock ‘n ‘roll had come on the scene,
among other things - and Burns’
unreliability was an even greater handicap.
When he famously missed the duet session
with George Jones that resulted in Jones’
breakthrough hit
Why Baby Why
- which
found Jones overdubbing his own harmony
vocal in Burns’ absence - it was not perhaps
the straw the broke the camel’s back, but
the writing was nevertheless on the wall.
Burns, who told steel guitarist Joe Brewer
that
“if it wasn’t for women and bourbon,
[I] wouldn’t even play music,”
torpedoed
his career in pursuit of both, and Daily and
Pierce grew tired of it. When his records
stopped selling, they dropped him. A year
or so before, he’d been one of the headliners
of Houston’s Saturday night showcase the
‘Grand Prize Jamboree’ and seemed poised
for stardom. Now he was without a record
label, the ‘Jamboree’ was fading, and he
began sinking without a trace.
Burns seemed to blame Starday, and
Pappy Daily in particular, for his failure to
make it big - notable in light of the high
esteem that Burns’ friend Eddie Noack and
many others held Daily, and ironic because
he’d find himself in Daily’s stable once
again a few years down the line.
“I was
getting tired of being a puppet on a string,
which, as a recording artist, I could see I
was becoming,”
Burns told Bob Allen
about the rift between him and Daily.
“And
- 7 -