Billy Don Burns

Billy Don Burns (born July 19, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter.

Early life

Burns was born in Fifty-Six, a small incorporated town in north-central Arkansas. His parents were Junior Jackson Burns and Urene Balentine Burns. Burns's father worked as a farmer and timber worker. His house did not have electricity. Burns's music career began in his local church, and as a young man, he obtained a Gibson acoustic guitar, a brand he still plays today. Burns was influenced by country artists such as Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Jimmy Driftwood. Hank Williams especially had a major impact on his life and career.

During the Vietnam War, Burns was trained as a paratrooper. He served stateside from January 1968 to January 1970. After leaving the service, Burns traveled to California, where he met one of his heroes, Merle Haggard. Haggard gave Burns his first chance to play music on television in Bakersfield, then a hot-spot for country music.

In 1971, Burns released his first single, "Tucker Farm," about the prison farm of the same name in Arkansas, a place that had been in the news since the late-1960s amid Arkansas' notorious prison scandals. Burns has since been critical of "Tucker Farm," though the song got the attention of the warden at Tucker, who invited him to play there. The B-side was "She Hasn't Been a Lady Very Long." The record performed well on the Americana charts, rising higher than Johnny Cash's most recent record at the time, Unchained. Cash sent Burns letter of congratulations for Burns knocking him down the charts.

In the past few decades, Burns has released solo records with more regularity than at any point in his career. In 2015, he completed A Night in Room 8, an all acoustic album recorded in the hotel room in California where Gram Parsons died. Shooter Jennings worked as producer for the album. That same year, Burns was arrested and imprisoned in Kentucky for a drug conviction. Burns had been arrested for possession of amphetamines and given parole, provided he did not leave Kentucky. He did, and after a traffic stop in New Mexico, he was incarcerated for violating the conditions of his parole. Burns served a thirteen-month prison term.

Burns has struggled his entire adult life with drugs and alcohol, a problem that he has written about in his songs. He has attempted to kick drugs at professional rehab facilities, but with little long-term success. Burns's problems with addiction, and his love of being on the road, have affected his relationships. He has been married six times to five different women. In the 1980s, he was engaged to Nashville singer Lorrie Morgan. The couple never married, though they later collaborated on the 1984 track, "New Commitments." As of 2025, Burns is not married.

Since his release from prison, Burns has continued to record and tour, but with less frequency than he once did. He has, nevertheless, been embraced by younger country musicians such as Whey Jennings, Corb Lund, and Josh Morningstar. In 2016, he released Graveyard in Montgomery, a title that refers to his hero Hank Williams, who is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. It took seven years for Burns to release his next album, I've Seen a Lot of Highway.

Discography

Albums Year Album US Country Label 1982 Ramblin' Gypsy — Gypsy Woman Records 1994 Long Lost Highway - Moreno Valley Music Group 1996 Desperate Men — Small Dog A-Barkin' 2001 Train Called Lonesome - Moreno Valley Music Group 2004 Heroes, Friends & Other Troubled Souls - Rust Records 2007 The Berlin Tapes - Rockin' H Records 2012 Nights When I'm Sober (Portrait of a Honky Tonk Singer) - Rusty Knuckles 2012 A Night in Room 8 - BCR Los Angeles 2016 Graveyard in Montgomery - Rusty Knuckles 2020 The Country Blues - Country Rewind Records 2020 Brothers of the Music - Rusty Knuckles 2023 I've Seen a Lot of Highway - BCR Los Angeles