Burrill was born in Boston[2] and graduated from Amherst College in the year 1906, a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
His reading in 1923 inspired George Furness of the National Carbon Company to produce The Eveready Hour, the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting.
In 1925, he gave a recitation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline on radio with a musical background by Max Jacob's Chamber Symphony Orchestra.
This was broadcast on Tuesday, November 24, 1925, at 9 pm over WEAF, WEEI, WFI, WCAE, WGR, WWJ, WSAI, WTAG, WOC, WCCO and KSD.
The subject Burrill selected for the opening Vespers was "The Mask of Civilization," along with a discussion of Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown.