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Johnny was born in Rosaireville, New Brunswick and is one on Canada's Superstars in Country Music. In the early 60's he moved to Toronto, wher he then became a fixture at the famous Horseshoe Tavern. There he backed up countless country music artists, mostly all from Nashville. Some of the artists he performed with were: Lefty Frizzell-Tex Ritter-Loretta Lynn-Red Foley-Charley Pride-Stringbean-Dottie West-Mel Tillis-Conway Twitty-Waylon Jennings-Glen Campbell-Bobby Bare-Carl Smith and many more.
In the early sixties, he was choosen by the CTV show, Country Music Hall to be a part of the back-up band. In 1967 Johnny formed the Caribou Show Band and for the next seven years, he hosted a syndicated television show called, At The Caribou. In 1972 the band changed their name to Eastwind, and became the house band on CTV network show, Funny Farm.
Although Johnny and his band spent a lot of backing up other name artists, including a 7 year engagement on the syndicated , Opry North Show, he developed a following of fans with his own pure country voice.In 1978 he had a major hit song called, Wild Honey, and it was named single of the year and record sales boomed across Canada. In 1984 he recorded an album with his friends in Nashville namely, Pig Robins, Charlie McCoy, Buddy Spicer, Ray Edenton, Pete Wade, Lloyd Green and Buddy Harman. Johnny says it was a dream com true to play with those guys, with its first single, Everybody's Gone Crazy reaching the charts.
While performing nowadays, Johnny works with the best musicians around such as: Joe Howe (lead guitatrist from the Tommy Hunter Show)-Bill Johnson-Al Brisco (Steel Guitar Club of Canada) and John Meydam to name a few. Johnny performed on many radio and TV shows such as: The Tommy Hunter Show-The Grand Ole Opry-The Family Brown TV Show-Big Country-Wrap Around Nashville and Nashville Now.
Johnny still performs clubs as well as fairs across Ontario. Johnny continues takes time to make albums. His most recent album is called, Sing Me Back Home, a duet with his great friend Country music artist, Harold MacIntyre. A previous release by Johnny was entitled, Johnny Burke Country, which is a 18 song collection containing some of his best songs. To find more info about Johnny and his music, e-mail Johnny at wildhoney60@hotmail.com
JOHNNY WAS INDUCTED INTO THE NEW BRUNSWICK COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME IN 2005.
