Johnny Burnette Trio – Tear It Up

There is not a week that goes by that I don’t listen to some rockabilly. It’s not just the leads, it’s the fills as well. Rockabilly music is like this machine where parts are moving everywhere, but it always falls into place.

In this song, it’s not the opening riff that gets to me; it’s the fills that the guitar player is playing while Johnny is singing. He also slips some basslines in, all the while the bass is throwing some in as well. When you analyze this music, it can be chaotic, but when done right, it’s hard to resist. It’s like music climbing a ladder on one side and coming back down on the other at the same time.

This song was released in 1956; a very unpolished burst of energy that still sounds electric seventy years later. The Rock ’n Roll Trio, Johnny on vocals and rhythm guitar, his brother Dorsey on bass, and Paul Burlison on guitar, made a sound that helped define the very idea of rockabilly.

While it didn’t chart at the time, its influence was huge. The record’s mix of rhythm and attitude caught the attention of British musicians, guys like Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, and Paul McCartney, who all cited Burnette’s Trio as a crucial influence. The Stray Cats and Robert Gordon helped revived rockabilly in the late 1970s and early 1980s; this song was one of the first songs they covered. You might remember another song by Johnny, Train Kept a Rollin’ and it was covered by Aerosmith and The Yardbirds.

If you only like smoothly produced music, rockabilly is not for you. If you want a primal sound, welcome aboard!

Tear It Up

Come on little baby let’s tear the dancefloor up
Come on little baby let’s tear the dancefloor up
Come on little mama let me see you strut your stuff
Tear it up, tear it up
Tear it up, tear it up
Come on little baby let me see you strut your stuff

I’m leavin’ little baby, gonna be gone a long-long time
I’m leavin’ little baby, gonna be gone a long-long time
So come on little baby, show me a real good time
Tear it up, tear it up
Tear it up, tear it up
Come on little mama let’s tear the dancefloor up
(Goow!)

Well you step back baby, move my way
Step around again an’ let me hear you say
Tear it up, tear it up
Come on little baby let’s tear the dancefloor up
Tear it up, tear it up
Tear it up, tear it up
Come on little mama let’s tear the dancefloor up

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Johnny Burnette Trio – Tear It Up”

  1. Pingback: Johnny Burnette Trio – Tear It Up – MobsterTiger

  6. maybe he was Tired of Toeing the Line so he decided to tear it up, LOL. Not a bad tune and one great thing about rockabilly is if you don’t like a song, it’s over before you realize it. Try saying that ‘prog rock’!

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  10. The Geritol sign makes me wonder if the video is from Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour. It came on TV on Sunday afternoons after the Packer game and before The 20th Century with Walter Cronkite. Sunday was TV day at our house – and Ed Sullivan came on after dinner.

    But back to the music – the call and response between the vocal and the guitar fills is great!

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      3. His real name is Joe Poovey, he was a good country singer and Rock-a-billy, like Ronnie and the others. He grew up in Fort Worth and stayed in the area his entire career. He was good buddies with my father, and by linkage, he and I became good friends. He was also a DJ on a few local radio stations for a while. He played all the joints in Fort Worth and Dallas, the Big D Jamboree, The Cowtown Jamboree and such, but never made it big like Ronnie and Carl Perkins. He had the talent for sure. Everyone called him Groovy Joe, so the name stuck. I think you’ll find that FW and Dallas were a hotbed and considered ground zero for that style of music.

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  13. I am a big Dave Alvin fan, from his days with the Blasters going forward.  After the songwriting (and oh my what a great songwriter he is) can this song, it’s not the opening riff that gets to me; it’s the fills that the guitar player is playing while Johnny is singing. He also slips some basslines in, all the while the bass is throwing some in as well. When you analyze this music, it can be chaotic, but when done right, it’s hard to resist. It’s like music climbing a ladder on one side and coming back down on the other at the same time.me his guitar work.  So I’m reading this discussion of Johnny Burnette and I find the writer (Mr. Max) has described to a T what I love about Alvin’s guitar playing. 

    In this song, it’s not the opening riff that gets to me; it’s the fills that the guitar player is playing while Johnny is singing. He also slips some basslines in, all the while the bass is throwing some in as well. When you analyze this music, it can be chaotic, but when done right, it’s hard to resist. It’s like music climbing a ladder on one side and coming back down on the other at the same time.

    Change the Johnny to Phil and you are talking about the Blasters. 

    I have never paid attention to the guitar work in the Cars.  Obviously I need to.

    All of which is to say, Max, you have quite a blog here.  A great cast of characters (there is an unintended bit of humor making the segue from you and Lisa talking about codeine in St. Josephs and cocaine in Coca Cola and CB coming in saying “Now you’re talking.”)  I continually learn stuff or make connections I hadn’t made before.  Impressive.

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