Burns is an English manufacturer of electric guitars and bass guitars, founded by Alice Louise Farrell (1908–1993) and James Ormston (Jim) Burns (1925–1998) in 1959. The company was first named Burns-Weill, then renamed Ormston Burns Ltd. At its peak, in the 1960s, it was the most successful guitar company in England.
Jim Burns has often been described as the British Leo Fender due to the similarity in terms of his life and the direction his company took under his ownership, and the parallels to be drawn between the latter periods of both companies when they were later sold off. Jim Burns set out to make, in his own words, "mass produced one-offs", such as the Marvin, a radical take on the Stratocaster style with many more differences than it is generally credited with. The Bison was another guitar now considered a classic, combining fewer Fender influences with a shorter scale length of 25", and the now famous "Wild Dog" electronics, allowing the high-output Tri-Sonic pickups to be selected in many different, and sometimes unusual, combinations.
Through the guitar's boom years in the early 1960s, Burns instruments were the choice of many rising stars of the 'beat group' scene, including the Honeycombs, the Searchers and the Troggs. With the launch of the Burns Marvin in 1964, Britain finally had a solid-body electric that was fully equivalent in terms of sound and performance to its American counterpart, the Fender Stratocaster.
The introduction of the Black Bison in December 1961 reflects the confidence that Jim Burns must have felt in his new venture. With its all-black finish, forward sloping horns and gold-plated hardware, the new guitar made a bold visual statement. Innovative features included four Ultra-Sonic pickups (developed with the help of the Goldring hi-fi company), novel 'Split Sound' circuitry, a newly designed 'boomerang' tremolo unit and a 'gear box' truss rod system that was concealed within the neck heel.
The model's £157 price tag singled it out as the most expensive British-built solid-body guitar of its era. In practice, the Black Bison proved completely uneconomical to manufacture and as a result, just 50 examples of the original four-pickup version were made before the model was redesigned with three pickups, a bolt-on neck and a simplified vibrato unit.
The Holy Grail - one of only 49 Black Bison 4 pickup models known to have been hand built by Jim Burns. It is one of the rarest and most iconic guitars ever. This is today a very rare guitar and only 19 are surviving.
An interesting part of the Burns Bison story is that a group called the Burnettes (note thate the drummer Dave had Burnetts written on his drum kit) played in 1962 solely with Burns Bison guitars and that they were the first to use then. Here is the story as told by Trevor Parfitt, their bass player:
“We visited Jim at Buckhurst Hill workshop and each played these (Burns Bison) guitars in plain wood as prototypes. The picture of the band is from 1962. Dave Smith was our first drummer and we used three other drummers before we broke up when Rod Butcher, on the right went to university. Rod had Burns Bison no 1, Robin Fuller, my cousin, had Burns Bison no 2 and I had Burns Bison bass no 1. Robin traded his for a Gibson 355 to an American schoolboy, Rod traded his into Ken Stevens music shop in Cambridge to buy a Gretch Country Gentleman. I traded mine to Ken for a Gibson EB0. You will note the pickups are direct into the scratch plate, not mounted separately. Also Rod has a white handle on his tremolo arm, in use, the finger grabbing the tremolo, wore away the gold and Jim sent us this spare arm so a worn one could be returned for plating. Eventually we lost track of which was the original arm for which guitar.
Just to add to the story, Robin explained last evening, that Mr Butcher, our lead guitarist Rod's father, who funded the band to get us going, as we were all still at school, knew Jim Burns in Littleport, before he moved to London. Mr Butcher was the baker in Prickwillow, about 3 miles from Jim's place and was heavily into music and hifi. Jim eventually moved back to Littleport.
When Mr Butcher took us down to Jennings Musical Industries, to purchase a new Vox AC30 Bass amp for me, we then went to a theatrical shop to purchase our new red jackets, he then took us to meet Jim at Buckhurst Hill, where we saw the new plain wood Bison.
I visited the workshop a few weeks later to try my bass in plain wood.
All the people in the pictures are still alive, Robin and Dave still live in the village of Littleport, Cambridgeshire, where Jim returned to to set up his final workshop. Robin and I joined one of my other friends, Terry Stoodley and formed The Crew, that band broke up when Terry went off to study as an architect, we reformed as The Crew of 62 about six years ago to do some recording, which we never did in the day and are still playing, you may find some of our stuff on Spotify and YouTube.
Robin has found the receipt for the purchase of his Black Bison number 2. The date is 5/6/62. Rod bought his about one month before and I bought my bass about a month later. Even if we do no longer have the guitars we still have the little books with all the details of the payments and that of Robin states on the back leaf, that it was for the purchase of a New Black Bison Guitar. The price was £168:4:6, Robin traded in his Sonic and made up the deposit to £108:4:6, the balance was put on finance and Robin was down to pay a total of £174:4:6.”
