Trevor Burton (born Trevor Ireson; 9 March 1949 in
Aston
Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, England. Located immediately to the north-east of Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a ward within the metropolitan authority. It is approximately 1.5 miles from Birmingham City Centre.
History
Aston wa ...
, Birmingham, England) is an English guitarist and is a founding member of
The Move
The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...
.
Career
Burton started playing guitar at a young age and was leading his own group called The Everglades by 1963. In 1964 he joined Danny King & The Mayfair Set, along with Keith Smart (drums, formerly of The Everglades), Roger Harris (keyboards), Denis Ball (bass) and vocalist King. The band cut a couple of
singles
Singles are people not in a committed relationship.
Singles may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series
* ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe
* ''Singles'' ...
but could not break outside the Birmingham area. Burton accepted an invitation from other Birmingham musicians to form
The Move
The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...
in January 1966, remaining with them until February 1969.
[Birmingham Beatsters, Peter Frame's Rock Family Trees, Omnibus Press, 1980]
The Move
The original line-up of
The Move
The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...
contained singer
Carl Wayne
Carl Wayne (born Colin David Tooley; 18 August 1943 – 31 August 2004) was an English singer and actor. He is best remembered as the lead singer of The Move in the 1960s.
Early days
Wayne was born in Winson Green, Birmingham, and grew up in ...
, lead guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/singer
Roy Wood
Roy Wood (born 8 November 1946) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He was particularly successful in the 1960s and 1970s as member and co-founder of the Move, Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. As a songwriter, he contributed a n ...
, drummer
Bev Bevan
Beverley Bevan (born 25 November 1944) is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). After the end of ELO in 1986, he founded ELO Part II.
Bevan also was drumm ...
, bassist
Ace Kefford
Christopher John "Ace" Kefford (born 10 December 1946) is an English bassist. He was the co-founder of The Move in October 1965 with Trevor Burton, after meeting David Bowie at Birmingham's Cedar Club, following a performance by Bowie's band D ...
and Burton on rhythm guitar. Wayne was the usual lead singer, but Wood (who wrote the majority of the original material at this stage), Kefford and Burton were also lead singers to some capacity. Despite a following in their native
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, the fledgling band were in dire need of management and exposure to the music scene in London, so
Moody Blues
Moody may refer to:
Places
* Moody, Alabama, U.S.
* Moody, Indiana, U.S.
* Moody, Missouri, U.S.
* Moody, Texas, U.S.
* Moody County, South Dakota, U.S.
* Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada
* Hundred of Moody, a cadastral division in South A ...
manager
Tony Secunda
Anthony Michael Secunda (24 August 1940 – 12 February 1995)
– accessed 27 March 2012 was an English manager of rock gro ...
became their manager. Secunda brought the band to London and secured them a weekly residency at the famous
Marquee Club
The Marquee Club was a music venue first located at 165 Oxford Street in London, when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. Its most famous period was from 1964 to 1988 at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, and it finally closed whe ...
, recently vacated by
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
. He dressed them up as American gangsters, staged a contract signing on topless model Liz Wilson, steered them away from their early
Motown
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...
-style sound and towards a more psychedelic
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
-influenced live sound and encouraged Wood to write more original material.
"
Night of Fear
"Night of Fear" is the debut single by British rock band the Move, written by Roy Wood. The song was first released on 9 December 1966, and reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart on 26 January 1967, staying for ten weeks in the charts. "Night ...
" was the debut single by The Move, released on
Deram Records
Deram Records was a subsidiary record label of Decca Records established in the United Kingdom in 1966. At the time, U.K. Decca was a different company from the Decca label in the United States, which was owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings w ...
and hitting No. 2 in the UK singles chart. Hit singles during Burton's tenure in the group included "
I Can Hear the Grass Grow
"I Can Hear the Grass Grow " is the second single by the Move, written by Roy Wood. The song was first released on 31 March 1967, and reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart on 10 May 1967, staying for ten weeks in the charts. "I Can Hear the Gr ...
", "
Flowers in the Rain
"Flowers in the Rain" is a song by English rock band The Move. The song was released as a single and reached number two in 1967 on the UK Singles Chart, and number four in Ireland.
It achieved its own place in pop history by being the first recor ...
", "
Fire Brigade
A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...
", "
Wild Tiger Woman" and "
Blackberry Way
"Blackberry Way" is a 1968 single by British band The Move. Written by the band's guitarist/vocalist Roy Wood and produced by Jimmy Miller, "Blackberry Way" was a bleak counterpoint to the sunny psychedelia of earlier recordings. It nevertheless b ...
". The group's 1968
eponymous debut album was to be the only full-length LP release by the original line-up, before Kefford quit the band after having an
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
-induced breakdown. The group carried on as a quartet with Burton shifting to bass. With "
Blackberry Way
"Blackberry Way" is a 1968 single by British band The Move. Written by the band's guitarist/vocalist Roy Wood and produced by Jimmy Miller, "Blackberry Way" was a bleak counterpoint to the sunny psychedelia of earlier recordings. It nevertheless b ...
" (with Wood and Bevan's future
Electric Light Orchestra
The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970 by songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood with drummer Bev Bevan. Their music is characterised by a fusion of pop, classical a ...
bandmate
Richard Tandy
Richard Tandy (born 26 March 1948) is an English musician. He is best known as the keyboardist in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra ("ELO"). His palette of keyboards (including Minimoog, Clavinet, Mellotron, and piano) was an important in ...
playing
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
) hit No. 1 in the UK after the commercial failure of "
Wild Tiger Woman", Burton was growing unhappy with Wood's lighter material with the shift into commercial pop. Although The Move initially intended to add Tandy to their line-up as a keyboardist, when Burton fractured his shoulder, Tandy switched to bass for a few gigs and TV shows, and left to join
The Uglys
Steve Gibbons (born 13 July 1941) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and bandleader. His music career spans more than 50 years.
Career The Dominettes
Steve Gibbons started his professional life as a plumber's apprentice in Harborne ...
upon Burton's recovery. After a fight onstage with Bevan at a show in Sweden, Burton quit the band to pursue a blues career. Burton was replaced on bass by
Rick Price
Rick Allan Price (born 6 July 1961) is an Australian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. His debut album, ''Heaven Knows (Rick Price album), Heaven Knows'', was released in July 1992, and peaked at No. 3 on the A ...
.
Later career
Burton was rumoured to be forming a new group with
Noel Redding
David Noel Redding (25 December 1945 – 11 May 2003) was an English rock musician, best known as the bass player for the Jimi Hendrix Experience and guitarist/singer for Fat Mattress.
Following his departure from the Experience in 1969 a ...
, who, like Burton, was a guitarist who had switched to bass. Burton and Redding shared an apartment in London at that time, and Roy Wood suspected the prospect of forming a band with Redding had encouraged Burton in his decision to leave the Move. However, nothing came of this. Burton jammed with members of
Traffic
Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation.
Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...
and became a friend of
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, and pop rock. Though primarily a keyboard player and vocalist prominent for his disti ...
, and almost joined
Blind Faith
Blind Faith were an English supergroup featuring Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. They were eagerly anticipated by the music press following on the success of each of the member's former bands, including Clapton a ...
in 1969. He later said that he "nearly got the job on bass – Steve wanted me, I think," but
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019) was an English drummer. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer", for a style that melded jazz and Music of Africa, Africa ...
wanted
Ric Grech
Richard Roman Grechko (1 November 1945 – 17 March 1990), better known as Ric Grech, was a British rock musician. He is best known for playing bass guitar and violin with rock band Family as well as in the supergroups Blind Faith and Traffic ...
instead. Burton then teamed up with
Steve Gibbons, who fronted the long-established Birmingham group
The Uglys
Steve Gibbons (born 13 July 1941) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and bandleader. His music career spans more than 50 years.
Career The Dominettes
Steve Gibbons started his professional life as a plumber's apprentice in Harborne ...
. Burton and Gibbons, along with Uglys' rhythm section Keith Smart and
Dave Morgan, plus keyboardist Richard Tandy created a Birmingham
supergroup Supergroup or super group may refer to:
* Supergroup (music), a music group formed by artists who are already notable or respected in their fields
* Supergroup (physics), a generalization of groups, used in the study of supersymmetry
* Supergroup ...
to be named Balls.
Balls was managed by one-time Moody Blues/Move manager Tony Secunda. Following in the trend of
Chris Blackwell
Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell (born 22 June 1937) is an English businessman and former record producer, and the founder of Island Records, which has been called "one of Britain's great independent labels". According to the Rock and Roll ...
's
Traffic
Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation.
Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...
, Secunda arranged for the new group to "get it together" in the country at a rented cottage on the Berkshire Downs and also hired Traffic's record producer
Jimmy Miller
James Miller (March 23, 1942 – October 22, 1994) was an American record producer and musician. While he produced albums for dozens of different bands and artists, he is most closely associated for his work with several key musical acts of t ...
for the group's
recording
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, ...
sessions. With Secunda arranging a large
Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provoc ...
style cash advance from the
record company
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produc ...
, the group started to compose and record new material while playing a few local
gigs. Morgan left during the summer of 1969, to be replaced by
Denny Laine
Denny Laine (born Brian Frederick Hines, 29 October 1944) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter, known as a founder of two major rock bands: the Moody Blues, with whom he played from 1964 to 1966, and Wings, with whom he played from 1 ...
, ex-singer/guitarist of
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1964, initially consisting of keyboardist Mike Pinder, multi-instrumentalist Ray Thomas, guitarist Denny Laine, drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick. The group came to ...
. But Balls split at the end of 1969, with Tandy joining The Move (for live gigs only), then Electric Light Orchestra, and Smart eventually joining
Wizzard
Wizzard were an English rock band formed by Roy Wood, former member of the Move and co-founder of the Electric Light Orchestra. ''The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits'' states, "Wizzard was Roy Wood just as much as Wings was Paul McCartne ...
. Balls reconvened as a quartet the following summer, with Laine, Burton, former
Plastic Ono Band
The Plastic Ono Band was a rock band formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 for their collaborative and solo projects based on their 1968 Fluxus conceptual art project of the same name.
Lennon and Ono began a personal and artistic relati ...
drummer
Alan White and vocalist
Jackie Lomax
John Richard Lomax (10 May 1944 – 15 September 2013) was an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. He is best known for his association with George Harrison, who produced Lomax's recordings for the Beatles' Apple record label in the late 1 ...
. Lomax was soon replaced by the returning Gibbons, and ex-
Spooky Tooth
Spooky Tooth were an English rock band originally formed in Carlisle in 1967. Principally active between 1967 and 1974, the band re-formed several times in later years.
History
Prior to Spooky Tooth, four of the band's five founding members h ...
drummer
Mike Kellie
Michael Alexander Kellie (24 March 1947 – 18 January 2017) was an English musician, composer and record producer.
In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Kellie was a member of the rock bands the V.I.P.s, Spooky Tooth and the Only One ...
replaced White in January 1971.
The group's only release was a single that came out on Tony Secunda's Wizard record label in January 1971 and was re-issued under Burton's name in June 1972. The song "Fight For My Country" was an anti-war anthem composed and sung by Burton, and included backing vocals from Steve Gibbons and Denny Laine, who played bass guitar on the track.
Burton guested on bass guitar with
Crushed Butler
Crushed Butler were a British proto-punk/ hard rock band that existed between 1969 and 1971. According to 2008's ''Pretty Vacant: A History of UK Punk'', the band "was, in many ways, Britain's first proto-punk band." Band members went on to ...
in 1970 and cut twelve studio recordings with the group intended for release on Tony Secunda's Wizard record label. Shortly thereafter, Burton guested on rhythm guitar with the
Pink Fairies
Pink Fairies are an English rock band initially active in the London (Ladbroke Grove) underground and psychedelic scene of the early 1970s. They promoted free music, drug use, and anarchy, and often performed impromptu gigs and other stunts, s ...
between August 1971 to July 1972, staying with the band long enough to appear on a BBC live session and two songs from their second album entitled
What a Bunch of Sweeties
''What a Bunch of Sweeties'' is a 1972 album by the UK underground group Pink Fairies.
History
Twink had left the band before the recording of this album. Former The Move guitarist Trevor Burton occasionally joined the band for gigs and contri ...
. He also worked with Birmingham vocalist
Raymond Froggatt
Raymond William Froggatt (born 13 November 1941) is an English songwriter and singer.Larkin, Colin (1998) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Country Music'', Virgin Books, , p. 159-160
Biography
Froggatt (otherwise known as "Froggy") was born in Bordes ...
until 1975.
After Balls, Steve Gibbons joined the Birmingham group
The Idle Race
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
which eventually became the
Steve Gibbons Band
Steve Gibbons (born 13 July 1941) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and bandleader. His music career spans more than 50 years.
Career The Dominettes
Steve Gibbons started his professional life as a plumber's apprentice in Harborne ...
. Burton joined in April 1975, and the group enjoyed a
hit
Hit means to strike someone or something.
Hit or HIT may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities
* Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super''
* Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...
single in 1977 with the
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...
song, "Tulane" as well as touring
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
extensively.
Burton left Steve Gibbons in 1983 to form his own band. They started performing twice weekly at the Red Lion in Balsall Heath, Birmingham with a line-up including sax player Steve Ajao. In 1985 the band recorded an album entitled ''Double Zero'' (BARLP1), now a collectors item, featuring Stuart Ford (slide guitar), Crumpy (bass), Tony Baylis (drums) and Ben Annon (percussion). The band has gone through a number of iterations, and at one point included former Uglys/Balls/Move/Electric Light Orchestra keyboardist
Richard Tandy
Richard Tandy (born 26 March 1948) is an English musician. He is best known as the keyboardist in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra ("ELO"). His palette of keyboards (including Minimoog, Clavinet, Mellotron, and piano) was an important in ...
. By 1993, Trevor was joined by Maz Mitrenko on lead guitar and later by drummer, Bill Jefferson and bass player, Pez Connor.
Former Move drummer
Bev Bevan
Beverley Bevan (born 25 November 1944) is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). After the end of ELO in 1986, he founded ELO Part II.
Bevan also was drumm ...
had been touring as "Bev Bevan's Move" since 2004, augmented on occasion by Trevor Burton. Burton joined permanently in 2007 and the Autumn 2007 tour was billed as "The Move featuring Trevor Burton and Bev Bevan".
[Bev Bevan interview with Johnnie Walker, BBC Radio 2, 20 September 2007]
On 20 April 2018, Burton released his first solo acoustic record, ''Long Play'', on Gray Sky Records. The record includes songs written by Burton as well as acoustic renditions of songs by critical modern song writers such as
John Darnielle
John Darnielle (; born March 16, 1967) is an American musician and novelist best known as the primary, and originally sole, member of the American band the Mountain Goats, for which he is the writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist.
...
of
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats are an American band formed in Claremont, California, by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. The band is currently based in Durham, North Carolina. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle, despite the ...
,
Vic Chesnutt
James Victor Chesnutt (November 12, 1964 – December 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, little (album), ''Little'', was released in 1990. His commercial breakthrough came in 1996 with the rele ...
,
Jeff Mangum
Jeff Mangum (born 24 October 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who gained prominence as the founder, songwriter, vocalist and guitarist of Neutral Milk Hotel, as well for his co-founding of The Elephant 6 Recording Company. Ma ...
of
Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel was an American band formed in Ruston, Louisiana, by musician Jeff Mangum. They were active from 1989 to 1998, and again from 2013 to 2015. The band's music featured a deliberately low-quality sound, influenced by indie rock ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burton, Trevor
1944 births
Living people
Musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands
English rock guitarists
The Move members
English blues guitarists
English male guitarists
English rock bass guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Rhythm guitarists
Lead guitarists
English male singers
The Idle Race members