DESCRIPTION:
Country: Country Blues Buy http://cdbaby.com Life and its trials. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. Donald delivers each and every emotion on the "workin' man's level". ruff, tuff and real. It's the stuff legends are made of. Listen.

Donald Lee Burns (Donal) was born in Connersville, Indiana.
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, Donal 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 Donal 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 Donal started playing in bands. The first band he was ever in was his band "Piwacket"! (The name of the cat in Alice in Wonderland). Donal 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 till we got it just like the record". 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 (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. Donal 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 Donal 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. He loved his 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, has 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.