Album Review – Billy Don Burns “Nights When I’m Sober”, Repost From Saving Country Music

Link to album review on Saving Country Music

"What a treasure this album is.

I’ll spare you the lengthy diatribe about what shame it is that Billy Don Burns isn’t a more heralded and recognized elder of the greater country music community. But rest assured, he should be. When you’ve produced albums for Johnny Paycheck and Merle Haggard, and had Willie Nelson cut your songs and appear on your albums, you deserve to be thrown a few more bones than what Billy Don has found at his feet. But you don’t need to drop names to know what a one-of-a-kind talent Billy Don Burns is, all you have to do is listen.

Billy Don Burns, Merle Haggard, Neal James and Johnny Paycheck

Then again, the demons that have pursued Billy Don throughout his life and career, dogging his successes with lapses into addiction and destitution make the start and stutter nature of his career understandable. Those battles are also what have fueled and elevated his status as a songwriter in certain circles. He’s deity-like to the people who know and love him, yet the general public is unfamiliar with the name (though they may recognize music he’s written or produced). Billy Don Burns is a force behind the music.


There are great songwriters, and then there are songwriters that define the apogee of the craft, songwriters like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt…and Billy Don Burns. There are songs on Nights When I’m Sober that will rip at your heart like nothing else. There’s a great variety on the album with sweet songs and fun songs. And where Billy Don elevates the stakes is in the production and approach to each composition. With producer/guitar player Aaron Rodgers, they reinvigorate the late-era, rock-infused Outlaw sound that had Haggard and Paycheck seeking Billy Don’s services.

Aside from maybe Tom Waits, Hank Williams and a few others, I have never heard an artist be able to pull as much emotion out of a composition as Billy Don Burns does by slowing everything down in the tear-jerking songs that constitute the backbone of this album. “Is He the Writer?” and “Stranger” are two excellent selections that work in the traditional Keith Whitley-style self-referential method that calls on both wit and irony to drive home a tragic story. “When Lonesome Comes Around” is a lot more of a loose arrangement, and takes “darkness” to all new depths as Billy Don tells the story of a man inviting in illusion as the one last antidote to alleviate chronic sorrow.

Billy Don Burns - Nights When I'm Sober... Portrait Of A Honky Tonk Singer

The dark songs are counterbalanced with some really warm offerings, specifically “Gaylor Creek Church” about the by-gone culture of community churches and the warmth they instilled in a child’s soul, and “Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way” with its fun acoustic lead-in and lead-out and its positive take to life on the road. “Wouldn’t Have It…” is awfully fetching and probably constitutes the “hit” of the album. Night’s When I’m Sober is always on the move, with the motorcycle story “Born to Ride” and the touring tale “Aaron Rodgers and Me”.


What elevates this album the most, the intangible of Nights When I’m Sober is the authenticity Billy Don Burns can approach these songs with. The battle will rage on forever about if songwriters and performers have to live what they sing and write about to be authentic, but with Billy Don, the point is moot.


In the song “Is He the Writer?” Billy Don mentions the classic tale of the artist cutting off his ear to suffer so he can draw inspiration. Many artists and their fans love this romantic notion of art and inspiration, but few artists have the commitment to see it through. You get the sense that with Billy Don, if times were tough, he wouldn’t hesitate looking for a fillet knife, and that he’s done the rough equivalent of cutting his ear off many times before, and will again before it’s all over.

Billy Don Burn’s albums Train Called Lonesome and Heroes, Friends, & Other Troubled Souls are also worth picking up, but I think one could make the case for Night’s When I’m Sober being Billy Don’s defining release.


Two guns up!"

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Purchase Nights When I’m Sober from Rusty Knuckles

The following videos showcase songs from Nights When I’m Sober with luthier Richard Peek making a gas can banjo in the background."

Billy Don Burns, album review on Saving Country Music

Billy Don Burns and His Outlaw Friends

As yall know we are staunch supporters of Real Country Music and with Billy Don Burns amazing new album coming out July 10th, its time for the world to realize the impact he as had on Real Country Music. Have a listen...

"I picked Johnny up at the airport across the Ohio river from Cincinnatti. I gave Johnny the white shirt and members only jacket that he has on. He looked pretty ruff. Then we drove through the freezing rain to Hillsboro Ohio. The Ohio State Police took him when we pulled into the court house. The shirt Johnny has on at th CCI concert is an Outlaw at the Cross shirt, a song that Mack Vickery and I wrote, RIP Mack. The young man walking behind Johnny in the prison is me with the black Paycheck 88 cap on and the black and yellow plaid shirt. This is the only time I ever saw Johnny close the show with a song other than "Take this job and Shove it" He closed this prison show with a song that I wrote "Chillicothe You Got a Hold on Me". RIP Johnny."
 - Billy Don Burns

Order your copy of Billy Don Burns stellar new album

Billy Don Burns new album - Nights When I'm Sober, Portrait Of A Honky Tonk Singer - out July 10th 2012

Billy Don Burns Inteview With Outlaw Magazine

Billy Don Burns is a true Country Music Warrior. He wears his battle scars with honor, depicting the stories of his life in his songs with brutal and beautiful honesty. He’s respected far and wide for his long career in songwriting and performing, and he’s still out there. He’s lived it and breathed it through lifetimes of country music passion and pain. Carrying the guitar like a sword on his back, he battles for the Poet. He battles for the Artist. He battles for the souls who defy modern convention. And every time he strikes a chord in some smoke-filled Honky Tonk, he wins. Billy Don Burns started out in this business working with legends, and somewhere along the way he became one himself.

Below is his interview with Andrea Fennel.

AF: It is obvious you live your music with fierce determination and passion, Billy Don. When did you first realize music was the life for you?

BDB: I entered this talent contest when I was in the Army, mostly to get out of all the hell in basic training. There were several acts and the whole post was there on the big night. Don Grady, TV star of My Three Sons, presented the winner with a big trophy. When I won that, I thought maybe I do have something going on for me. It was a pretty big deal. When I got out of the Army, I knew for sure this is what I was going to do.

AF: Who were your influences growing up?

BDB: I grew up in Stone County Arkansas, in Mountain View. I was into Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Jimmy Driftwood, who won a Grammy and wrote some great songs, was my mother’s school teacher. Jimmy always encouraged me. Those guys would be my first influences. There were many more before I figured out who I was.

AF:  Tell me about when you received your first Publishing deals…

BDB:  When I got out of the Army, Merle Haggard was becoming the hottest country act on the planet. It was 1971 and I had a band living in the Palm Springs area of California. I told the guys that I was going to go to Bakersfield and meet Merle. They said “you ain’t gonna meet him.” I had read that Merle had a Publishing company called Shade Tree. He couldn’t write for it at the time because he was under contract to write for Buck Owens. So, I go to Bakersfield and look in the phone book and there was Shade Tree listed on Niles Avenue. I went there and said I was a songwriter and would like to play them some songs. The lady running the office said I needed to see Roy Nichols as he was in charge of that. Roy was a star to me. He was a big part of Merle’s sound, playing lead guitar in his band. I met Roy and played him a couple of songs. He said “yeah, man, we will publish those.”  Then he asked me if I wanted to meet Merle who was in an office with Bill Woods. I said Yes. He called Merle and and we went in his office. Roy introduced me to Merle. It was so great. He autographed two of his albums for me. Then, he said to Bill Woods “why don’t you get him on Jimmy’s TV show this afternoon, Bill?” Bill Woods was a piano player on the show that was on Channel 32 there in Bakersfield. That was my first time to do a TV show. It was all so great. Then some 18 years later, I got to produce Merle on one of the Johnny Paycheck albums.  The great Harlan Howard signed me first as a staff writer in 1972 in Nashville.

Billy Don Burns with Frank Ehlinger and Ronnie Hymes © Rusty Knuckles Music 2012

AF: Who was the first artist besides yourself that cut one of your songs?

BDB: Connie Smith was on Columbia Records and she recorded my first song the year 1973. Of course, she is now Mrs. Marty Stewart.

AF: What was it like working with Johnny Paycheck and tell me how all of that came about…

BDB: I liked Johnny Paycheck. He was not easy to work with in 1988 – the cocaine and the booze pretty much had him a lot then. However, I am not saying anything bad about Johnny. Hell, it has whooped the hell out of my ass a bunch of times, too. When it was good- it was good. But, it was not an easy gig. When Johnny’s manager went to federal prison in 1988, I became his producer and manager and, hell yeah, it was a pretty rough ride, but I loved him.

AF:  Any good road stories you want to share?

BDB: I think I will pass on the road stories. Most of mine are either X-rated or incriminating, so I better pass on that for now.

AF: What has been one of your favorite moments in your career?

BDB: My biggest moment in the business would be when Johnny Cash sent me a one page letter. That was the biggest thing that has ever happened to me. I gave it to the Stone County Museum in Mountain View, my hometown in Arkansas.

AF: On your CD Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls, you have several guest stars. Who would be your dream person to cover one of your songs?

BDB: I guess I wanted a Willie Nelson record more than anyone else. He has always been such a great writer. So when that happened, it was so good. My first one he did was on his Sony Records Born for Trouble CD. My song was “I Don’t Have A Reason To Go To California Anymore.”  I would have loved to have had a Johnny Cash cut and I think if he would have lived longer that may have happened. He had just found out who I was not too long before he died.

AF: What has been happening with you lately?

BDB: This kid from South Carolina, Aaron Rodgers, ran me down and told me he was a big fan and wanted to produce a new CD on me. We did that and I am proud of it and I think it is one of my best ones. The CD is called (Nights When I’m Sober) Portrait of a Honky Tonk Singer and will be out soon.

AF: What about Music means the most to you?

BDB: What I love about this business the most is expressing myself and then have people write all these great things about what my songs mean to them. That makes me feel like a success. That is the best and it humbles me when I hear the nice things that people say about my music.

It is not easy being Billy Don Burns, but that is who I am and the only part that I know how to play.

Hit up Billy Don Burns on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/BillyDonBurns

Note: Billy Don Burns has just signed with a new label, Rusty Knuckes Records.   

~ Andrea Fennel  

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Andrea Fennel is native Texan who was raised outside of San Antone, and now resides in the outskirts of  Phoenix. She’s a freelance writer for several music publications. She plays the piano, saxophone, guitar and cello and enjoys hiking, hang gliding, and certain hippie activities.

Outlaw Magazine. Country, Rock and Roll, Blues, Folk, Americana, Punk. As long as it is real, it is OUTLAW. Overproduced mediocrity need not apply.

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Outlaw Magazine featuring an interview with Billy Don Burns

Original Country Outlaw - Billy Don Burns Joins Rusty Knuckles Music

What happens when you get a phone call by an underground legend whose songs have been recorded by individuals such as Willie Nelson and produced albums by Merle Haggard, Tanya Tucker and Johnny Paycheck? Here is what we did, we asked Billy Don Burns to join the team and allow us to release his next album. Folks, we are damn stoked to be working with Billy Don Burns and we aren't going to let everything out of the bag just yet. Dig in and learn a bit more about Billy Don and his storied history.

Support Real Country Music

Billy Don Burns

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Billy Don Burns joins Rusty Knuckles Music

More history on Billy Don Burns

There's a lot of talk these days about outlaws in country music. Whether part of the new breed or the old guard, the problem has always been if you have to proclaim yourself an outlaw, you're probably not one Arkansas native Billy Don Burns doesn't have to proclaim himself anything. His worn-out Harley-Davidson t-shirt and dirty red bandana aren't part of some trendy corporate-sponsored fashion-statement/marketing campaign. And when putting his songs down on record, no slick, young, next-big-thing Music Row producer need apply, thank you. Billy Don needs only one thing to get his message across: an open-minded listener unafraid of the dark side--a place Billy Don admittedly knows all too well. These are not your run-of-the-mill, radio-friendly ditties written by some publisher-appointed committee in a cushy Nashville office suite. Scan the titles: Runnin Drugs out of Mexico, Dark Side of the Spoon, Full Blown Addict--these are the often harrowing true-life experiences that have poured out on paper, and on record, in a flood of nerve-rattling, mind-bending emotion. If you're looking for the primrose path, look elsewhere, friend. But if you're brave enough to handle it, just push play on any of the 13 tracks on Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls, give Billy Don three or four minutes of your undivided attention (no problem there, you'll be fully involved thirty seconds in), and you'll know just what a real honest-to-God outlaw country singer sounds like.

Its real life, says Billy Don. It may be a little darker than people like to recognize, but its there. I wish my life was more of an Ozzie and Harriet kind of life, but it ain't.

Billy Don Burns was born in the community of 56 in Stone County, Arkansas. A family friend, songwriter Jimmie Driftwood (Battle of New Orleans", Tennessee Stud) was Billy Dons mothers schoolteacher, and inspired the naturally-talented youngster to pursue a singing career. While serving in the US Army, he won a talent competition (his trophy was presented to him by fellow serviceman--and My Three Sons TV star--Don Grady). Billy Don left the Army in 1970 and moved to California, where he bought a new guitar and began performing in clubs. In 1972, Wanda Jackson's steel guitar player, Lynn Owsley, endorsed Billy Don so that he could move into a musician's boarding house in Nashville. By 1973, he was portraying Hank Williams at the Opryland USA theme park, and soon had his songs cut by the likes of country legends Connie Smith and Mel Tillis.

In 1975, he formed the Travis Brothers with Jimmy Getzen, and recorded a gospel album. He was also performing around various Nashville clubs, opening for acts such as Boots Randolph and Ronnie Prophet. Billy Don toured North America throughout the early part of the decade and then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton proclaimed March 27th, 1983, Billy Don Burns Day. In the early 1980s, he was engaged for a time to singer Lorrie Morgan. In 1984, the pair recorded a duet, New Commitments, which they performed on The Nashville Network.

By 1990 things were becoming decidedly darker for Billy Don, both professionally and personally, as involvement in drugs began to overtake his life and interfere with his musical career. Still, Billy Don continued recording, touring and working with other artists on various projects. In 1987, he produced a gospel album for Johnny Paycheck and later recorded a live album for the Take This Job and Shove It singer, who was an inmate at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Ohio. Due to legal entanglements, both albums remain unreleased to this day.

By the mid-90s, conditions were improving for Billy Don as artists including Willie Nelson and Sammy Kershaw began recording his songs. In 1995, his debut album Long Lost Highway was a critical, if not commercial, success. And in 1996, Billy Don and his frequent co-writer Hank Cochran topped the Americana music chart with the brilliant Desperate Men, which unseated Johnny Cash's Unchained from the No. 1 spot in 1997. Although at the time (to the chagrin of promoters and fellow musicians alike), Billy Don tried--unsuccessfully--to prevent his own album from overtaking that of his heros, the Man in Black graciously faxed him a handwritten note to congratulate him on the achievement. On 2004s Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls, Billy Don pays tribute to Johnny Cash with a rendition of his 1957 hit, Give My Love to Rose.

It was one of the first Cash songs I learned as a kid. My mother bought that album, and something about it touched me then. I felt like it was one everybody hadn't done a lot.

In 2002, Billy Don Burns released the critically-acclaimed Train Called Lonesome, featuring musical support from the Reno Brothers (Don and Dale) and longtime musical associate Jeff Williams, plus backing vocals by John Carter Cash. The lead-off track on Heroes, Friends and Other Troubled Souls is the revved-up rocker Mississippi, co-written by Billy Don with Hank Cochran and featuring guest vocalist Tanya Tucker.

Though his heroes and friends are ever-present with him on record, it is perhaps the other troubled souls to whom his songs will always mean the most; those whose lives are lived out of the spotlight and in the shadow of some dark, desperate secret. It is those shadows Billy Don Burns knows all too well--and his music is the light that shines on them, making them real, but ultimately offering hope, a voice, and a way out of the darkness.

"Its been a rollercoaster all the way. Every time I play these songs, I hear, Man, you wrote that song for me. You told my story. There's a lot of lost souls out there." - Billy Don Burns