On 10 June 2013 Burns was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation "For significant service to the community, particularly to children recovering from illness and trauma, and to the entertainment industry".
[1][2] To buy his first guitar for 10 shillings, Burns had part-time jobs selling newspapers, working in a milk bar and in a fruit shop.
He transferred to the Myers Store' display window but was fired for having long hair, however he had already joined the Mod band The Flies in early 1964.
The Flies were reputedly the first long-haired band in Australia and drew heavily on The Beatles for their musical and fashion influences and soon acquired a large local following.
[4][5] Burns befriended Ian Meldrum, a university law student looking for somewhere to stay, whose two-week visit became nine years of boarding at his parents' home.
[2] Meldrum later promoted Burns solo career in his writing for the weekly teen newspaper, Go-Set, which became a pop music "bible" by the late 1960s.
[5][6] After six months residency at Pinocchios, Spry started booking The Flies into Sydney where they were arrested for vagrancy for having hair over their shoulders, but it was great publicity making all the papers.
During the shoot, Burns sang with his guitar and was joined by apprentice hairdresser Lynne Randell – who was promptly signed by Spry and managed by West.
[7] One of the dancers / mimers on Kommotion was Maggie Stewart, she also danced on ABC TV's Dig We Must where Burns introduced himself, the couple married in 1970.
An extended play was released by RCA consisting of four tracks from their singles, but was attributed to The Flies, vocal by Ronnie Burns.
Most of Burns's 1967 material was written by The Bee Gees, the tracks appeared on his first solo album Ronnie (Spin, July 1967).
The original versions were eventually issued by Festival Records on The Bee Gees compilation albums, including a 2-CD set Brilliant from Birth (2000).
Late that year, former pop star Johnny Young was writing "The Real Thing" as a ballad and intended to offer it to Burns.
Morris recorded it as his debut solo single with Meldrum's production turning it into a six-minute long psychedelic pop song – it became a national No.
Young revealed that the song was inspired by the experiences of fellow pop star, Rowe, whose music career ended in late 1967 when he was drafted into the Australian Army and he was sent to fight in the Vietnam War.
It is one of the first Australian pop singles released in stereo and features a lavish orchestral and vocal arrangement by John Farrar (ex The Strangers) who went on to write and/or produce many hits for Olivia Newton-John.
He appeared on variety TV shows including as a judge on Young Talent Time, where Maggie Burns was a choreographer.
Ronnie and Maggie appeared on the cover of the 2012/13 Burnie White and Yellow Pages under the theme 'A Helping Hand, The Aussie Way'.
On 10 June 2013 Burns was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation "For significant service to the community, particularly to children recovering from illness and trauma, and to the entertainment industry".