Albert Austin "Sonny" Burgess, a rockabilly pioneer, always made his home in Newport, where he first became known as an outstanding musical entertainer. He grew up listening to and playing country music from the Grand Ole Opry, but his taste and talent leaned toward rhythm and blues. By listening to blues artists on WDIA in Memphis and befriending black musicians he met along the way, he developed a rockabilly style all his own. His first professional gigs came in 1954 with the Moonlighters, named for Newport's Silver Moon nightclub, where he and many other popular musicians performed regularly. At Sam Phillips's suggestion at Sun Records, the band added new members in 1956, created a stronger rock sound, and renamed itself the Pacers. The group often performed with Elvis Presley in the mid '50s. In 1956 Sonny and the Pacers recorded "We Wanna Boogie" and "Red Headed Woman" for Sun, with a raw and energetic sound that heralded what early rock music was all about, and they followed with "Ain't Got a Thing" in early 1957. Sonny's bluesy voice, masterful guitar picking, and the Pacers' stage antics made their concerts some of the most entertaining on Rock' n' Roll Highway 67, including appearances at Fireman's Hall in Walnut Ridge. He retired from the music business in the early 1970s, but a following in Europe led him and the Pacers to tour again in the 1980s, and with renewed interest in rockabilly music he continued to find audiences around the world eager to see him play and sing.