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 but could not break outside the Birmingham area. Burton accepted an invitation from other Birmingham musicians to form
the Move in January 1966, remaining with them until February 1969.
The Move The original line-up of
the Move contained singer
Carl Wayne, lead guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/singer
Roy Wood, drummer
Bev Bevan, bassist
Ace Kefford 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, the fledgling band were in dire need of management and exposure to the music scene in London, so
Moody Blues manager
Tony Secunda became their manager. Secunda brought the band to London and secured them a weekly residency at the famous
Marquee Club, recently vacated by
the Who. He dressed them up as American gangsters, staged a contract signing on topless model Liz Wilson, steered them away from their early
Motown-style sound and towards a more psychedelic
West Coast-influenced live sound and encouraged Wood to write more original material. "
Night of Fear" was the debut single by the Move, released on
Deram Records 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", "
Flowers in the Rain", "
Fire Brigade", "
Wild Tiger Woman" and "
Blackberry Way". 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-induced breakdown. The group carried on as a quartet with Burton shifting to bass. With "
Blackberry Way" (with Wood and Bevan's future
Electric Light Orchestra bandmate
Richard Tandy playing
harpsichord) 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 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.
Later career Burton was rumoured to be forming a new group with
Noel Redding, 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 and became a friend of
Steve Winwood, and almost joined
Blind Faith in 1969. He later said that he "nearly got the job on bass – Steve wanted me, I think," but
Ginger Baker wanted
Ric Grech instead. Burton then teamed up with
Steve Gibbons, who fronted the long-established Birmingham group
the Uglys. Burton and Gibbons, along with Uglys' rhythm section Keith Smart and
Dave Morgan, plus keyboardist Richard Tandy created a Birmingham
supergroup to be named Balls. 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 of
the Mountain Goats,
Vic Chesnutt,
Jeff Mangum of
Neutral Milk Hotel. ==References==