Dick Burnett (musician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monticello, Kentucky, United States
Dick Burnett | |
|---|---|
 Dick Burnett with banjo and beggar's cup | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Richard Daniel Burnett |
| Born | October 8, 1883 Monticello, Kentucky, United States |
| Died | January 23, 1977 (aged 93) |
| Genres | Folk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Fiddle, banjo, Appalachian dulcimer, guitar |
| Labels | Columbia |
Richard Daniel Burnett (October 8, 1883 – January 23, 1977) was an American folk musician and songwriter from Kentucky.
Burnett was born near Monticello, Kentucky. Blind for most of his life, he was a full-time travelling entertainer. With fiddler Leonard Rutherford, he formed a long touring partnership and a brief recording career in which they sang a number of popular and influential sides with Burnett on banjo or guitar.
Burnett has been described as "one of the great natural songsters, a man who collected, codified, and transmitted some of our best traditional songs. Dick was also a skilful composer and folk poet of considerable skill; his "Man of Constant Sorrow" remains one of the most evocative country songs."[1]
Burnett was born in the area around the head of Elk Springs about seven miles north of Monticello. He remembered little of his farming parents. His father died when he was only four and his mother died when he was 12. Burnett did say that his mother told him how his father would carry him in his arms when he was only four years old, and he would help his dad sing. Burnett's grandparents were of German and English descent and that particular ancestral influence would be instrumental in forming Burnett's musical career.[2] At the age of seven, Burnett was playing the dulcimer; at nine, he was playing the banjo, and at 13, he had learned to play the fiddle. Unusually for the time, he also learned the guitar, which was still a novelty in that area.[3][4]
As a teenager, then as a married man with a child, Dick Burnett worked extensively as a wheat thresher, logger, oil driller and oilfield tool fitter. Then in 1907, he sustained a gunshot explosion in his face while fighting off a mugger. Surgeons were unable to save his eyesight, so he resorted to supporting his family and himself by his music.[3] Almost prophetically, his boss made this statement to Burnett: "Well, you can still make it; you can make it with your music.[2]
Musicians in Wayne County could elicit small change from audiences drawn from people frequenting or passing through the Monticello Courthouse Square. To earn a proper income, Dick was forced to travel to as many different places as he could reach by train or on foot. At other courthouses, at rail stations, and on street corners, he would perform to attract a crowd. While other street musicians might place a hat on the ground, he accepted contributions in a tin cup tied to his leg.[3]
Even before he lost his sight, he had sought to enlarge his repertoire by composing his own songs. He felt that he had "learned the rudiments of music" by virtue of attending five singing schools and studying one book "up to where I could compose my own songs, set the music to it, and time it out". With this confidence, he composed more and more songs, which increased his earning power in two ways; they added novelty to his performance, and he could earn extra by selling the lyrics. For the most part, he had individual song lyrics printed on cards he called "ballets", but occasionally he compiled songbooks such as his 1913 compilation of six songs. Some of these were from other singers, dealing with disasters such as the sinking of the Titanic and the wreck of the FFV,[3] but two were notably personal: the autobiographical "Song of the Orphan Boy", which was later recorded but not released, and the semiautobiographical "Farewell Song", with its opening line "I am a man of constant sorrow". Burnett himself never recorded the song, but his friend Emry Arthur learned it and recorded it accompanied by his brother Henry using the opening line as title. The Arthur family lived in Wayne County not far from Monticello, and shared many songs with Burnett. He recalled learning one song from a ballet card from a third brother, Sam. He acquired more ballets by exchanges with other blind musicians he met on his travels. Having learned the tune by listening, he would have the lyrics read to him until he had learned the whole song.[1][3]
To add further variety to his increasingly rich repertoire, Dick Burnett purchased novelty gadgets that made nonmusical noises. These sounds, together with shouts and dance calls, added an element of extrovert showmanship to his performances, which he described as "monkey business".[1][4]
