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Donald Lee Burns was born
in Connersville, Indiana September 1, 1973. His musical influences began
early in life as family and friends would gather at
their house for a
 homespun version of "The Grand Ole Opry". As
his father played the guitar or banjo, Donald Lee would be at his feet with a
mandolin which only had two strings on it, but no matter, he would "beat
time" as the saying goes, keeping rhythm with the band. Donald Lee's mother
was also a major musical influence as she sang many of the current hits of the
day by Loretta Lynn, Connie Smith, Jeanie Pruitt and many others. Donald
Lee's favorite times early in life centered around music.
In school Donald Lee was into sports. He was active in
Little League Baseball and Basketball. His favorite subjects were History and
Science. To this day, his favorite channel on the tube is the History Channel.
During Junior High, Donald Lee started playing in bands. The first band he was
ever in was his band, "Piwacket"! (The name of the cat in Alice in
Wonderland). Even stranger is the fact that they did all their rehearsing in a
Pentecostal Church. Donald Lee says, "for a long time the only song we
could really play together as a band was "Sweet Home Alabama", and we
would play it over and over and over in that Pentecostal Church". The band
consisted of two guitars (Donald Lee played lead guitar, a Fender Telecaster)
bass and drums. The strangest part of all is that Donald Lee's math teacher who
played acoustic guitar was also in the band. "Piwacket" eventually
began to play in local clubs and before long was booked three nights a week.
Donald Lee was "hooked". He knew music was his calling without a
doubt. For the next four years "Piwacket" had lots of success. After
that time, changes in the lineup began to occur and the band went through
several name changes, ultimately becoming the "Hoosier Maniacs". As
the "Hoosier Maniacs" they achieved Top Five status in the Indiana
Music Awards two years running.
After 4 years of gigging steadily in the same area Donald Lee began
to burn out. He had a job opportunity at the local Ford Motor Plant and decided
maybe he should see what a regular job was like. It didn't take long before he
was writing five or six songs a day as he worked on the assembly line. He would
go home and record those in his little home studio and play them for neighbors
and friends. One of his brother's neighbors suggested he go to Nashville with
his songs and gave him the name of a contact person. That contact person just
happened to work for Mel Tillis and the rest is history. That contact person
loved Donald Lee's songs and began to work with Donald Lee in an effort to get
him signed to a recording contract.
Nashville and the music business in
general have lots of ups and downs, and Donald Lee experienced plenty of
those. He came close to being signed by several major labels but was never quite
in the right place at the right time. Along the way, he co-wrote such hit songs
as "Storm In The Heartland" which
Billy Ray
Cyrus recorded and scored a Million-Selling
record with "Simple
Minded Heart" which
was a big hit for Gene Watson.
Eventually, Donald Lee came to the attention of CCR
Records and is now signed to their roster. As
of this writing, his first single, "Where
Does Love Go (When It's Gone)", from the
forthcoming album "Where Does Love
Go" is being shipped to radio. |
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