I wrote about the Everly Brothers back in January 2014, when Phil died:
Suddenly, this picture comes back to me:
That was the cover for an album called "A Date With the Everly Brothers" (which you can still, of course, buy, though not easily with that cover). That's the one with "Cathy's Clown." The year is 1960, so I was 9 when I first gazed at that cover and tried to understand that concept that this was "A Date With the Everly Brothers." I had not yet acquired a record album of my own. That wouldn't happen until 1962, when this picture would capture my girlish fantasies. "A Date With the Everly Brothers" was my sister's record, so she determined who would have which brother on this imaginary date of ours. I believe Dell chose Don, so Phil was mine.
Don't want your love any more/Don't want your kisses, that's for sure...
Oh! Forget Cathy! And — what? — are the 2 of you sharing one girl, one girl who's not even good to you? Don't you think it's kind of sad, that you're treating me so bad? Or don't you even care? We care! And there are 2 of us! The Althouse Sisters! Where is this Date With the Everly Brothers?
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That playlist is simply awesome, and timeless.
Damn… I was just listening to the Flying Burrito Bros. “The Gilded Palace of Sin” the last few days on my morning walk and marveling at how much Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman sounded like Don & Phil.
The late great Warren Zevon played in the Everly Bros. band in the early 70s and he had some entertaining stories of the brothers cussing and fighting each other, before breaking up one night at an appearance at Knott’s Berry Farm, IIRC…
Among the scattered recordings they made, a 1986 version of Dire Straits’ Why Worry makes the Brothers in Arms album track sound like something Don might have written himself in 1960.
My understanding is Mark Knopfler wrote it with the Everly Brothers in mind. So perfect when they performed it, with Knopfler and Chet Atkins...
Why Worry
Seeing "Phil and Don" immediately brought to mind the lyrics of Paul McCartney's 1976 song "Let 'em in".
After all these years I just got the reference.
I'm not sure if there was ever a bad Everly Brothers single. Their big hits, noted by Althouse, are glorious. My personal favorite, however, is their last charted hit that was written for them by none other than Sir Paul McCartney:
"On the Wings of a Nightingale"
I always thought the best cover of Bye Bye Love was in the final scene of All That Jazz.
As interesting as the story of the Everly Brothers is, the story of their songwriters is the stuff of fairy tales. Felice (her husband's pet name for her)and Diadorius Boudleaux Bryant composed songs in Nashville, and although they had had some of their songs recorded by top country performers (at least three turning into hits), their teaming with Don and Phil Everly was, as the article describes ...
"In the mid-’50s, with rock ’n’ roll on the rise, the Bryants hit their creative stride when they hooked up with two young harmonizing brothers from Kentucky, Phil and Don Everly. Whether it was a doe-eyed ballad (“Devoted to You”), a novelty song (“Bird Dog”) or a rockabilly tune (“Problems”), the Bryants and the Everlys were a match made in hillbilly heaven."
Interestingly, the Bryants had offered their song "Bye, Bye Love" to at least 30 other performers, all of whom turned it down, before offering it to the Everly Brothers. It was their debut song, and their first of many hits.
Phil and Don--the Everlys. American brothers, such that their overlapping DNA seemed to manifest itself in the precision of their harmonies and timing, the tight, indissoluble blend of their voices. Phil with his head turned left, almost singing over his shoulder into the sole mic; Don leaning in, often having to dip the neck of his J-200 to avoid Phil’s instrument, standing as close as their voices.
“Cathy” “Little Susie,” yes, but also listen to them sing “When Will I Be Loved?”—one of the few songs on which Don sang lead—as they seem to add a beat to the first word of each line beyond the corresponding notes, giving a stately, soaring feel to a sad song.
Such cool looking guys, too—smiling modestly, with the greatest heads of hair of the fifties. Phil blondish, Don darker, both piled so thick and high they seemed to defy gravity. When my two older sons were about eight and five, on a lark I helped them gel their hair into Everly style pomps, they put on their suits, and we had their photos taken at Sears. It’s one childhood photo that stands out from the rest, and will always recall Phil and Don.
What about The Righteous Brothers?
Since Althouse is a student of Dylan and a devotee of the Everly Brothers as I am, this is worth a moment...
On the "EB 84", the same album that featured the last Everly Brothers charted hit ("On the Wings of a Nightingale"), the Everlys did an unlikely cover of Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay". Evidence that the Everlys were almost genetically incapable of recording a bad song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPvIgIIM6vU
What a shock that picture is. Until this moment I thought the Everly Brothers were Older. They knew. They'd lived, experienced love and heartbreak, made music out of it. What age is that? Not the age I see in those faces in that picture. I heard them when they came out and then turned on them in 1961 when I went to college or maybe a little sooner. Transferring away to folk music like the Carter Family from commercialism like the Everly Brothers and then transferring to Bob Dylan and I never paid any attention to them again (though I know all those early songs by heart and I hear them in my head when I think of the Fifties.) And all along I went on thinking of them as lovers and singers. I'm going to try to forget that picture. It'll take work. They look as if they're in a playpen looking to be lifted out.
It’s funny, but a couple weeks ago I was thinking about their hit song “Wake Up Little Suzy.” The singer(s) laments that he and his girlfriend (“Suzy”) fell asleep in the back of the movie theater and he’s worried now that her “reputation is shot.” Things were different in 1957!
Sorry. Back in grade school in 1957 I was smitten with a girl named "Suzy," spelled with a 'z' and a 'y', and not spelled "Susie." My bad. Last year I heard from her. She's a great-grandmother now.
Yes, I am 75 now so I was 11 then. And she was beautiful.
Don Everly was Axl Rose’s father in law during the early 1990s.
“ We've both been sound asleep
Wake up, little Susie, and weep
The movie's over
It's four o'clock
And we're in trouble deep”
Staying out that late will make everyone think they had sex.
Wince - thanks for that. Great.
My last business trip before I retired a few years ago was to speak at a technical conference in Düsseldorf, Germany. Arriving at my hotel late on a Sunday morning after a miserable flight from ATL through AMS I decided after having some brunch to walk a couple of blocks down to the promenade along the Rhine to get some exercise and adjust to the time. After a while I stopped and sat on a park bench when a couple of men, probably in their mid-70s, took their places on another bench, each with a guitar, just a few yards from me. After conversing in German for a few minutes they starting playing and singling and over the next half hour or so worked through an Everly Brothers greatest hits playlist. And they were perfect! It was like Phil and Don just showed up for an impromptu concert. They drew quite a crowd and a lot of applause.
40 years ago I worked at the front desk of a Holiday Inn in San Jose, CA, putting myself through college.
It was across the street from the performing arts center, and I checked in a lot of celebrities and acts that were on the way up (Huey Lewis, The Tubes), on the way down (The Smothers Brothers), and the timeless (BB King, Mel Blanc, Jerry Lee Lewis).
Among those timeless were Phil and Don. They were there a couple of nights. When they weren't performing they just hung out like everyone else...a lot of the time in the bar. They were unpretentious and nice, genuine guys.
You have to remember that San Jose in the '80s was a tough, small town...the tech explosion was still 15 years in the future. Hookers stabbed bar customers every now and then, and the streets were pretty rough. They were a long way from being the stars of yesteryear.
Even though their heyday was before my time, I listened to their songs on 'oldie' stations and knew talent when I heard it. It sounded effortless...perfect harmony that can only come from two people that share genes.
That was part of the key, I think. Me and my brother are 4 years apart, and even my wife would have a tough time telling us apart on the phone.
I will remember them as good guys (not all of the celebrities were), and it was a pleasure to meet them.
Btw, my best story is probably Mel Blanc. I have no idea why he was there, but he checked in himself. While he was filling out the paperwork (pre-computer), he was talking about this and that. Every 15 or 20 seconds he would switch voices.
First it was Bugs Bunny. Then Daffy Duck. Then Yosemite Sam. Then Elmer Fudd. It was hilarious and surreal. Something I will never forget...
Ozymandias at 7:46...
That's some good writing there : )
Everyone was right.
Phil and Don were not only greatly influenced musically by The Louvin Brothers, but they took after them in their relationship with each other. Things did not end well for either duo.
Without the Everly Brothers, no Simon and Garfunkel, no Beatles. In addition, their late 60s LPs for Warners set the stage for country rock.
Joe Smith--Thanks.
My line of harmony:
Mitchell Trio
Everly Brothers
Beach Boys
Dillards
Beatles
Byrds
CSNY
Roches
others
I’m reading a lot of reminiscences on Facebook of people who grew up with Don and Phil Everly in Shenandoah, Iowa. They got their start in show business there, performing on KMA Radio with their parents.
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