His mother, Anna Seymour, an educator, (born in Georgia), remarried and in 1915 moved to Chicago and became involved with politics on the Southside within the Republican Party of Ruth Hanna McCormick, Charles Dineen and William "Big Bill" Thompson.
His mother taught under Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University and was the first African American woman to teach at a school then called "Armour Tech", later the Illinois Institute of Technology.
While attending Phillips, Burley developed friendships with Lionel Hampton, Milton Hinton, Louis Jordan, and Langley Waller, who later all moved from Chicago to New York City to work in the music, writing and entertainment industries.
While in New York, Burley married his first wife, Gustava McCurdy, the first black woman to sing the national anthem at Madison Square Garden.
From 1947 Burley was writer for Elijah Muhammad, published as Mohammad Speaks, so helping establish press exposure for the Black Nation of Islam.
The foreword of the publication Message to the Black Man was written by Burley, who got involved through S. B. Fuller, the only owner who would accept the articles, in the Pittsburg Courier.
The columnist Walter Winchell became a good friend of Burley's along with Dorothy Killgallen, Ed Sullivan, Bill Corum, Hy Gardner, Earl Wilson.
Burley contributed his works to Esquire Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Pic, Crisis, Interracial Review and The Catholic Press.
That same year, he put together Dan Burley & His Skiffle Boys, an ensemble that included Brownie McGhee and his brother Sticks, as well as Pops Foster.
During his career, Burley composed more than twenty original musical compositions, with colorful names, such as, "Pig Foot Sonata," and "The Chicken Shack Shuffle.