TITLE: Sonny Burgess and the Pacers
SPEAKER: Sonny Burgess
EVENT DATE: 10/18/2006
RUNNING TIME: 54 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Sonny Burgess and the Pacers perform rockabilly music from Arkansas, another in the Homegrown Concert Series sponsored by the American Folklife Center.
Speaker Biography: Sonny Burgess's music spans five decades of airplay, concerts, dance parties and radio shows. An original recording artist with Sun records, he recorded classic songs such as "Red Headed Woman" and "We Wanna Boogie" in the style now known as Rockabilly. Rockabilly is an exciting blend of the blues, country and gospel, and was an important building block of 1950s rock and roll. Burgess and fellow band members put on a famously energetic rock and roll show, originally in their home region of northeastern Arkansas. In the 1950s they joined Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Billy Lee Riley, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash and many others on regional tours in local school gyms, promoting their releases on Sun Records. Burgess and the Pacers were known not only for their music but for their acrobatic stage shows. They continue to perform regularly, and were inducted into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame in 2002.
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SERIES: Homegrown
