Premiere: Does Billy Burnette cross your mind?

Writer and guitarist releases Crazy Like Me, CD and rockin' memoir

Everyone should know Billy Burnette, because everyone knows his music.

Billy Burnette was born with music in his veins. His father Dorsey Burnette and uncle Johnny Burnette were two-thirds of the Rock ‘N Roll Trio, a band which put rockabilly on the charts and influenced Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson (and therefore pretty much every rocker to follow, including Led Zeppelin) and, of course, young Dorsey William “Billy” Burnette III.

Billy Burnette’s history includes nine years playing guitar for Fleetwood Mac and too many unbelievable stories to detail here, but fortunately he’s written a memoir, Crazy Like Me, to tell us all about it, so here we’ll just talk about his songs. Fourteen of them, including two of his biggest successes, “Do I Every Cross Your Mind?” and “River of Love,” appear on his CD, also titled Crazy Like Me.

Talking about “Do I Every Cross Your Mind?,” Burnette told Elmore, “The ballad was on Ray Charles’ last album. It was hit in 1985. Then, he cut it again with Bonnie Raitt on his Genius Loves Company album. I’ve never cut it myself actually. It’s been a single by Cher. It was a hit in Europe by Tom Jones. It’s been cut by all kinds of people. It’s probably one of my biggest copyrights as a writer. I’m very blessed to have done this all my life. This album is an overall look at my work as a writer, and it tells my story.”