Biography
Randy Burns occupied a peripheral position within the Greenwich Village folk milieu of the 1960s, yet his recordings stand as generally engaging specimens of psychedelic folk in the post-Dylan vein; the initial trio of LPs carries additional appeal for collectors due to their appearance on the storied New York independent ESP-Disk, even if they fall short of the inventiveness found in works by Pearls Before Swine.
Born in Connecticut during 1948, Burns departed his family home at seventeen. Following the expected stretch of wandering with only a guitar, the youth arrived in New York City toward the close of the early-1960s folk surge, where he slept in Washington Square Park and performed on the streets for coins. In the first months of 1966, still eighteen, he secured steady work as the regular opener at the storied Gaslight Club on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Soon afterward, ESP-Disk founder Bernard Stollman contacted the singer and proposed a recording session for the imprint. Though Burns’s approach remained considerably more conventional than those of labelmates such as the Fugs, the Godz, and leading figures from the city’s free-jazz community, he completed his debut, the 1967 album Of Love and War. This understated folk set featured Burns’s clear vocals supported solely by acoustic guitar, with occasional twelve-string contributions from Emery Fletcher. Only three tracks were originals by Burns, all strong, while the balance comprised familiar material from writers including Eric Anderson and David Blue; a standout rendition of Irene Paul’s 1940s anti-war piece “Mr. War” supplied the record’s most memorable moment.
As the Village folk community faded amid the summer of love, Burns, like many contemporaries, grew drawn to psychedelic rock. After a brief return to New Haven, he collaborated with the local psych-pop group the Morning. Energized by the experience, he reassembled in Greenwich Village with the Sky Dog Band—Mat Kastner on piano and organ, Bruce Samuels on bass and flute, and John O’Leary on drums and hand percussion—while handling vocals plus electric and acoustic guitar himself. The quartet performed locally through the winter of 1967–1968 and cut Burns’s second ESP-Disk effort, Evening of the Magician, the next spring. Markedly stronger than the debut, this collection ranks as a modest acid-folk landmark, containing ten fresh Burns compositions and none of the lackluster covers that weakened Of Love and War.
Burns retained the Sky Dog Band for his final ESP-Disk outing, 1970’s Song for an Uncertain Lady. Psychedelic elements recede somewhat here, replaced by a fresh country inflection across several songs. The country-rock shading complements Burns’s timbre and material effectively, rendering the album nearly as accomplished as its predecessor.
With ESP-Disk’s activities declining in the early 1970s, Burns achieved the major-label transition previously attained only by labelmates the Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. He signed with Mercury Records and issued 1971’s Randy Burns and the Sky Dog Band, another solid country-rock recording. Sales proved scarcely better than those of his ESP-Disk titles, prompting Mercury to end the arrangement. Polydor then supported two further releases, 1972’s I’m a Lover, Not a Fool and 1973’s Still on Our Feet. After the latter, optimistically titled LP, Polydor followed suit, leaving the album as Burns’s last new material for nearly twenty years.
Burns maintained live work through the 1970s and 1980s. He and Kastner, who had shifted to guitar and bass, appeared at folk festivals and coffeehouses across those decades. In 1991 the duo recorded The Cat’s Pajamas, a cassette issued on Burns’s own Picket Fence imprint and sold primarily at performances. Burns kept playing into the 1990s while composing his autobiography, Before the Road Ended. Passages from the manuscript surfaced in various folk-oriented zines and sites during the late 1990s. Mid-decade, the German ZYX label reissued all three of Burns’s ESP-Disk albums on CD as part of its broader ESP catalog restoration.
Born in Connecticut during 1948, Burns departed his family home at seventeen. Following the expected stretch of wandering with only a guitar, the youth arrived in New York City toward the close of the early-1960s folk surge, where he slept in Washington Square Park and performed on the streets for coins. In the first months of 1966, still eighteen, he secured steady work as the regular opener at the storied Gaslight Club on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Soon afterward, ESP-Disk founder Bernard Stollman contacted the singer and proposed a recording session for the imprint. Though Burns’s approach remained considerably more conventional than those of labelmates such as the Fugs, the Godz, and leading figures from the city’s free-jazz community, he completed his debut, the 1967 album Of Love and War. This understated folk set featured Burns’s clear vocals supported solely by acoustic guitar, with occasional twelve-string contributions from Emery Fletcher. Only three tracks were originals by Burns, all strong, while the balance comprised familiar material from writers including Eric Anderson and David Blue; a standout rendition of Irene Paul’s 1940s anti-war piece “Mr. War” supplied the record’s most memorable moment.
As the Village folk community faded amid the summer of love, Burns, like many contemporaries, grew drawn to psychedelic rock. After a brief return to New Haven, he collaborated with the local psych-pop group the Morning. Energized by the experience, he reassembled in Greenwich Village with the Sky Dog Band—Mat Kastner on piano and organ, Bruce Samuels on bass and flute, and John O’Leary on drums and hand percussion—while handling vocals plus electric and acoustic guitar himself. The quartet performed locally through the winter of 1967–1968 and cut Burns’s second ESP-Disk effort, Evening of the Magician, the next spring. Markedly stronger than the debut, this collection ranks as a modest acid-folk landmark, containing ten fresh Burns compositions and none of the lackluster covers that weakened Of Love and War.
Burns retained the Sky Dog Band for his final ESP-Disk outing, 1970’s Song for an Uncertain Lady. Psychedelic elements recede somewhat here, replaced by a fresh country inflection across several songs. The country-rock shading complements Burns’s timbre and material effectively, rendering the album nearly as accomplished as its predecessor.
With ESP-Disk’s activities declining in the early 1970s, Burns achieved the major-label transition previously attained only by labelmates the Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. He signed with Mercury Records and issued 1971’s Randy Burns and the Sky Dog Band, another solid country-rock recording. Sales proved scarcely better than those of his ESP-Disk titles, prompting Mercury to end the arrangement. Polydor then supported two further releases, 1972’s I’m a Lover, Not a Fool and 1973’s Still on Our Feet. After the latter, optimistically titled LP, Polydor followed suit, leaving the album as Burns’s last new material for nearly twenty years.
Burns maintained live work through the 1970s and 1980s. He and Kastner, who had shifted to guitar and bass, appeared at folk festivals and coffeehouses across those decades. In 1991 the duo recorded The Cat’s Pajamas, a cassette issued on Burns’s own Picket Fence imprint and sold primarily at performances. Burns kept playing into the 1990s while composing his autobiography, Before the Road Ended. Passages from the manuscript surfaced in various folk-oriented zines and sites during the late 1990s. Mid-decade, the German ZYX label reissued all three of Burns’s ESP-Disk albums on CD as part of its broader ESP catalog restoration.
Albums
