Fantasy Jukebox - 2. The Train Kept A-Rollin' by Johnny Burnette and The Rock 'N' Roll Trio
Imagine a fantasy jukebox that contained all the most influential, innovative, adventurous and just plain great music since the dawn of the recording era. OK, so the likes of iTunes, YouTube and Spotify have made this more of a reality than a fantasy, but setting aside their rather indiscriminating presence, what should it include?
Continuing a series exploring some of the key musical statements of the recording era, Matthew Vizard picks a breathless slice of rockabilly.
2. Johnny Burnette and The Rock 'N' Roll Trio - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (1956, Coral Records)
Writers: Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, Lois Mann
A retooling of a jump blues record from 1951 by Tiny Bradshaw, the Rock 'N' Roll Trio's version of The Train Kept A-Rollin' is a breathless, lustful rockabilly ride aboard a cross country locomotive with a "real gone dame".
Our singer-protagonist is on heat, unwilling and unable to let this powerful force of womanhood out of his mind: "Our lovin' was so good, jack, I couldn't let her go."
Burnette sounds so pent-up with sexual energy that he is seemingly unable to control a vocal mania loaded with yells, growls and whoops; singing at the top of his breath as the song hurtles through its two minutes fifteen seconds.
The performance is so full of punkish attack it almost trips over itself towards the end. Its distorted guitar, verging on atonality, was pioneering at the time; its sheer ragged energy an early example of pop music's ability to sound how our young lives feel - turbulent, fragmented and capricious.
Perhaps most famous for the frothier, rather toothsome solo hit You're Sixteen, Johnny Burnette formed his hard rockabilly trio with brother Dorsey and guitarist Paul Burlison in Memphis. Captured at their best on their Coral recordings (compiled on the essential Rock 'N' Roll Trio album which includes The Train Kept A-Rollin', a flop single by the way), they were trailblazers of a tougher, rawer version of the clash of rhythm and blues and hillbilly musical forms that had given birth to Elvis a couple of years before.
The more minimalist approach of the Trio's better-known Tear It Up contrasts with the sheer velocity of our Fantasy Jukebox pick. The Train Kept A-Rollin' embodies the careeering joy and pain of teenage lust, its power undiminished 57 years on.
The Yardbirds would later cover it, The Beatles were fans and recorded other Trio songs, and thus the shortlived Rock 'N' Roll Trio found their way into the pop lexicon.
Johnny Burnette died in a boating accident in Clear Lake, California, in 1964. Dorsey died of a heart attack in 1979. Paul Burlinson died in 2003, from cancer.
