These days, Burnett works part-time, driving cars for Hertz in his hometown of Vienna, Virginia, and he books his own listening room gigs in support of his solo acoustic album Confidence Game. But he doesn’t mind such a drastic change in fortune. After surviving the excesses of the 70s, he feels lucky just to be alive.

Now happily married and the father of a twelve-year old budding percussionist, Burnett books his own shows, drives himself to his own gigs, and promotes himself at every opportunity. He’ll be performing his new songs (as well as a few Firefall favorites) at Cary’s Six String Cafe on Saturday, May 7.

Playing solo on small stages brings Burnett full circle in his career. That’s what he was doing in Washington, DC, in 1970 while driving a cab to make ends meet. He met fellow musician Rick Roberts (a former Flying Burrito Brother), flew to Colorado with him to start a new band, and wound up signing with Atlantic Records a year later. Firefall hit the charts with "You Are The Woman," "Just Remember I Love You," and "Cinderella."

In fact, the "Cinderella" story is one of Burnett’s most interesting experiences with record label logic. The song itself, a fictional tale of a hard-living man who kicks his pregnant girlfriend to the curb, brought howls of protest from women’s groups in most major cities along the tour. But when Atlantic execs first heard the track, their main concern was with a curse word.

"There was one expletive in there they thought would offend people," Burnett remembers, "so their answer was to edit it out. That was their solution. When the song got released, they suddenly had a whole new set of problems that had nothing to do with the language! Record companies don’t really catch on sometimes."

Unfortunately, Burnett and the rest of Firefall found themselves dealing with even worse problems, as they succumbed to the usual excesses of the 70s – lots of alcohol and even more drugs. Burnett fled the band on the eve of what was to be their last tour and spent the next several years trying to pull his life together and hold down some kind of job.

His experience as a former rock star didn’t help much in the real world, even in the radio industry. "I was interviewing for a radio personality job in DC," Burnett says, "and the program director sat me down in his office and said he wanted to hire me, but he had a problem. He then showed me a picture up on his wall. It was of him and me, back in the 70s, at a Firefall show. He’d been a deejay back then. He didn’t know if he would feel comfortable being the boss of someone he used to see as a big rock star!" Burnett laughed. "I helped him solve that problem by telling him to just take the picture down and throw it out the window!"

Confidence Game is Burnett’s first tentative step back into the recording studio since his Firefall days. Once inside, he felt he had come home. "The studio is easy," he says. "It’s my laboratory! I loved making the Firefall records. I was hesitant about doing a solo acoustic record because when I play by myself, I always hear the other parts – the drums, the harmonies – that I feel are supposed to be there. But I’ve come to realize that’s not how people listen to me. They don’t react like something’s missing. They do hear me."

He’s also been surprised at how far away some of his listeners live. Since posting Confidence Game for sale at the online independent music store CDBaby, he’s sold several hundred copies, not only in the States but also to fans in Japan, Scandinavia, and Germany.

Despite the long and life-threatening fall from stardom, Burnett is proud of his Firefall days and is still surprised when fans bring the old albums to his solo shows for autographs. He even recorded an acoustic version of "Cinderella" for Confidence Game and performs old favorites like "Just Remember I Love You," a song which holds special meaning for him.

"When Rick Roberts wrote that song, he saw it as just a love song," he says, "but I’ve always liked to play that song by myself, without a band wrapped around it. I hear something deeper in the words, like God singing to us, or like I’m singing to my son. I hesitate to tell people that, because they might think I’m being over-the-top religious, but that’s what I hear when I play it."

Copyright 2005 by Jennifer Layton