RARE early rock n roll Rockabilly crooner JIM BURGETT Swim set LP

$

38

    Relatively rare title; looks like this was signed by all of the band at lake tahoe. I would grade it very good, with some visible scuffs and light scratches.

Will ship for $5

Jim Burgett remembers the day when a door-to-door salesman dropped by their Ceres home to sell steel guitar lessons. His mother, herself a singer in church, decided to go for it and the 12-year-old's musical interests took off.

"Ceres was the beginning of everything for me," said Burgett, who was a big name in Lake Tahoe music circles in the 1950s and 1960s.

When he and his band first brought rockabilly tunes to the South Shore American Legion Hall at South Lake Tahoe in 1957 and packed in audiences of young people, it was the start of a life in music. Columbia Records would later take notice. In 1961 he recorded the spooky minor-key ballad, "The Living Dead" and "Let's Investigate." Later he would meet up and marry his second wife, Marlene Ricci, now 61, who toured with Frank Sinatra.

Many of Jim Burgett's fans probably have no idea that he is a product of Ceres and a 1953 Ceres High School graduate.

Burgett's songs - recorded between 1960 and 1964 - never reached the top of the charts, but his fans were convinced that they were every bit as good as Ricky Nelson's or Jerry Lee Lewis's. After performing at Harrah's Tahoe casino he later became a concert promoter at the Fun House, bringing to Tahoe groups like Santana, Tower Of Power, Cold Blood, Grateful Dead, Steppenwolf, It's A Beautiful Day and Chuck Berry.

To this day, many in California and Nevada remember Burgett, the performer.

"People remember that time and remember coming to my dances," said Burgett, now 80 and living in Las Vegas. "It's amazing to me never being a huge name and never having a big hit record."

Tahoe couldn't have been farther removed than Ceres, which was a sleepy town of 2,400 in the early 1950s. Born in Carlsbad, N.M., in 1935, Burgett came to Ceres as a third-grader. His parents, Ralph and Rachel Burgett, followed Jim's grandfather's move to California. The Burgetts first lived in a house at Sixth Street and Roeding Road.

"Mom, my sister and I were there while he was gone for almost three years (in the Army)," said Jim. After his service, Ralph built his family a home in the early 1940s on Moore Road between Roeding Road and Whitmore Avenue. They lived there at the time Jim attended Ceres High where Jim played on the Bulldogs football team. He didn't become really interested in music until his junior and senior years.

"I took steel guitar lessons when I was in grade school. A guy came walking down door to door just knocking on doors and my Mom says, ‘Yeah, let's try that.' And I played in a little band when I was about 12 but nobody knows it. I had an interest for a while but it just took me over in 1952, 1953."

He was involved in high school chorus but laughs as he reads the choir director's inscription in his Cereal yearbook reading, "Jim, you may not be the best singer in this group but you're a lot of fun to have around."

Jim said he appreciates what Ceres offered him now although he didn't at the time. He remembers fellow classmates itching to get out of sleepy Ceres upon graduation.

"I didn't appreciate Ceres, maybe for its simplicity," said Burgett. "It was really a great quiet place. I enjoyed every day there. I got along with everybody there but I wasn't a great student."

Married to classmate Sara Moore before graduation day, Jim immediately went to work after earning his diploma. Jim had learned employable skills, like as plumbing, working alongside his dad in home construction. Jim went to work with Adam's Plumbing in Modesto. He also found work loading up cans into rail cars for Continental Can Company, and then worked at Century Buick Garage in Modesto. His dad remarked how Jim couldn't seem to hold down any job for long but he answered that he didn't like them.

Music was calling instead.

By that time, Ralph Burgett had established a plumbing shop in Tahoe City and agreed to take Jim's family in for a six-week period to see if Jim could make money in the music concert business in Modesto. Because Jim had never as much been to any dances while in high school, he cozied up to those already in the business, including Chester Smith, a local music legend and later TV station magnate. At that time Smith and Glenn Stepp were popular performers at local dance venues.

"I started going to those dances and getting to know the musicians and ‘how do you do this?' and ‘what do you need?' "

Ultra-shy, he formed a band but since he couldn't find any gigs he decided to put dances together himself. He rented Yori's Grove southwest of Ceres and sold tickets.

"I had my first dance out there and hoped that nobody I knew came. I was scared to death. I never stood on a stage or anything like that."