Biography

In 1966, Randy Burns was dropped off on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, with a bag over his shoulder and a guitar in his hand. Randy had gotten his start a year earlier at The Exit Coffeehouse in New Haven, Connecticut but soon left to join the Urban Folk Revival in Greenwich Village. The first three months he slept in flop houses, on subways and park benches in Washington Square Park. Every week he played the open mike nights at Gerde’s Folk City, The Gaslight Café and The Bitter End. Impressed by his talent, Clarence Hood, the owner of the legendary Gaslight, hired Randy as the permanent opening act. At only eighteen he was opening for the biggest lights in the world of folk music, opening for John Hammond, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Eric Andersen, Spider John Koerner, Steve Gillette, Sonny and Brownie, Phil Ochs, Carolyn Hester and Washboard Sam and many, many others. During this period he put out three folk albums on ESP Records.
As the Folk Revival was fading, he formed the electric folk rock group, Randy Burns and the Skydog Band. Within months his first major label album was released on Mercury Records and two albums soon followed on Polydor.
Randy Burns and the Skydog Band played all the legendary clubs in the country, the Cellar Door in DC, The Bijou Theater in Philadelphia, The Troubadour and Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles, The Bitter End and Electric Circus in New York, The Quiet Night in Chicago, The Hungry Eye in San Francisco, Berkeley Folk Festival with Buddy Guy and the Hollywood Bowl with the Smothers Brothers.
Rolling Stone Magazine said, ‘Nobody, but nobody, sings anything like Randy Burns.’ The New York Times called Randy “Vocally convincing.” Billboard Magazine wrote that “Randy’s voice is so intrinsically right that it wraps the listener in a pool of contentment.” When Randy played The Troubadour, the Los Angeles Times said, “Randy is the best country-flavored ... singer since Graham Parsons… .”
Frustrated with the music industry, Randy returned to his roots and hit the road again as a folk singer. For years he was literally homeless – ‘It would have been a waste of money,” he says, “I was singing so many places that I’d leave a bag of clothes wherever I usually played so I could travel light.”
Today, Randy is writing and gathering songs with a renewed ardor, in 2009 he released The Simple Things and in 2010 the folkier Hobos and Kings.
Randy participated in the 50th Anniversary Concert for Gerdes Folk City, this performance can be viewed on his website or on youtube.com.
Contact Information – website RandyBurns.net
Email rbwrites@aol.com
Phone 917 385 4897