The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop,[1] becoming pioneers of country rock.[2][3]
The Everly Brothers
Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
1956–1973, 1983–2005
Cadence, London, Heliodor, Warner Bros., RCA Victor, Razor & Tie, Mercury
The duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio in Iowa singing with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s, and in Knoxville, Tennessee, while the brothers were in high school. They gained the attention of Chet Atkins, who began to promote them for national attention.
They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.
Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and a growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the pair's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together and continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later.
The group was highly influential on the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.[4] They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 1986, and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Don was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019, earning the organization's first Iconic Riff Award for his distinctive rhythm guitar intro to the Everlys' massive 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie".[5]
History[edit]
Family and education[edit]
Don was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, on February 1, 1937, and Phil in Chicago, Illinois, on January 19, 1939. Their parents were Isaac Milford "Ike" Everly Jr. (1908–1975), a guitar player, and Margaret Embry Everly (1919–2021).[6][7][8][9] Actor James Best (born Jewel Guy), also from Muhlenberg County, was a first cousin, the son of Ike's sister.
Margaret was 15 when she married Ike, who was 26. Ike worked in coal mines from age 14, but his father encouraged him to pursue his love of music and Ike and Margaret began singing together.[10] The Everly brothers spent most of their childhood in Shenandoah, Iowa.[11] They attended Longfellow Elementary School in Waterloo, Iowa, for a year[12] but then moved to Shenandoah in 1944, where they remained through early high school.
Ike Everly had a show on KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah in the mid-1940s, first with his wife and then with their sons. The brothers sang on the radio as "Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil".[13] The family sang as the Everly Family.[14]
The family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1953, where the brothers attended West High School (Knoxville, Tennessee).[15] In 1955, the family moved to Madison, Tennessee, while the brothers moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Don had graduated from high school in 1955, and Phil attended Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville,[16] from which he graduated in 1957.[17] Both could now focus on recording.[18]
Style and influences[edit]
The Everly Brothers' music fused elements of rock and roll, country and pop.[1] Their style has been classified as country rock,[2][70][3][71] rock and roll,[2][1][72] rockabilly[72] and country.[2] The duo are retrospectively considered to be pioneers of country rock.[2][3] Don and Phil, both guitarists, used vocal harmony mostly based on diatonic thirds. On most recordings, Don sang the baritone part and Phil the tenor harmony.[73][74] One notable exception is "Since You Broke My Heart" (1958). Although Don was mainly low, and Phil was mainly high, their voices overlap in a very intricate and almost subtle fashion. Another notable example is "I'll See Your Light" (1977), which is one of the few songs in which Phil consistently has the low harmony while Don is consistently high. Don usually sang the solo lines (for example, the verses of "Bye Bye Love"); among the few exceptions is the 1965 single "It's All Over", on which Phil sang the song's solo lines.[75]
In the late 1950s, the Everly Brothers were the rock and roll youth movement's addition to close harmony vocal groups, many of which were family bands. They influenced rock groups of the 1960s, with such major acts as The Beatles,[76] The Beach Boys,[77] and Simon & Garfunkel[78] performing Everly songs as part of their early musical development.
Legacy[edit]
The music of the Everly Brothers influenced the Beatles, with Paul McCartney and John Lennon referring to themselves as "the British Everly Brothers"[64] when hitchhiking south to win a talent competition before the band was born.[79] They based the vocal arrangement of "Please Please Me" on "Cathy's Clown".[80] McCartney also referred to 'Phil and Don' in the lyrics to "Let 'Em In" from the 1976 album Wings at the Speed of Sound.
Keith Richards called Don Everly "one of the finest rhythm [guitar] players".[81]
Paul Simon, who worked with the pair on the song "Graceland", said on the day after Phil's death, "Phil and Don were the most beautiful sounding duo I ever heard. Both voices pristine and soulful. The Everlys were there at the crossroads of country and R&B. They witnessed and were part of the birth of rock and roll."[13]
Achievements and honors[edit]
The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top 100 singles, 26 in the top 40. They hold the record for the most Top 100 singles by any duo and trail only Hall & Oates for the most Top 40 singles by a duo. In the UK, they had 30 chart singles, 29 in the Top 40, 13 Top 10, and 4 at No. 1 between 1957 and 1984. They had 12 Top 40 albums between 1960 and 2009.[82]
The Everly Brothers were among the first 10 artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. They were introduced by Neil Young, who observed that every musical group he had ever belonged to had tried, and failed, to copy the Everly Brothers' harmonies. On July 5, 1986, the Everlys returned to Shenandoah, Iowa, for a concert, parade, street dedication, class reunion, and other activities. Concert fees were donated to the Everly Family Scholarship Fund, which gives scholarships to middle school and high school students in Shenandoah. The brothers were inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.[83]
In 1997, the brothers were awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. They were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.[84] Their contribution to music has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. On October 2, 1986, The Everly Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work in the music industry, located at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.[85][86] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Everly Brothers No. 33 on its list of the "100 greatest artists of all time".[87] They are also No. 43 on the list of UK Best selling singles artists of all time.[88]
Tributes and interpretations by other artists[edit]
The Everlys, as noted above, wrote and composed "Till I Kissed You" (Don), "When Will I Be Loved" (Phil), "Born Yesterday" (Don), and "Cathy's Clown" (Don, or possibly Don and Phil). The authorship of "Cathy's Clown" has been the subject of a 2017 lawsuit and has been differently adjudicated by different courts, most recently in 2021.[89] "Cathy's Clown" and "When Will I Be Loved" became hits for Reba McEntire and Linda Ronstadt, respectively. "Cathy's Clown" was also covered by the Tarney/Spencer Band and released as a single in 1979. Band member Alan Tarney (a former member of the Shadows) went on to be a producer for Cliff Richard and a-ha, the Norwegian band who, in turn, covered "Crying in the Rain" in 1990 for its fourth album, East of the Sun, West of the Moon.[90][91]
On Labor Day weekend 1988, Central City, Kentucky, began the Everly Brothers Homecoming event to raise money for a scholarship fund for Muhlenberg County students. Don and Phil toured the United Kingdom in the 1980s and as recently as 2005, and Phil appeared in 2007 on recordings with Vince Gill and Bill Medley. 2007 also saw Alison Krauss and former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant release Raising Sand, which included a cover of the Everlys' 1964 hit "Gone, Gone, Gone", produced by T-Bone Burnett.[92] In 2007, Anthony Kiedis, singer for Red Hot Chili Peppers, named his son Everly Bear Kiedis in honor of The Everly Brothers who he cited as one of his favorite groups.[93]
Four Everly Brothers tribute records were released in 2013: Billie Joe Armstrong's and Norah Jones' Foreverly,[94] the Chapin Sisters' A Date with the Everly Brothers,[95] Bonnie Prince Billy's and Dawn McCarthy's What the Brothers Sang,[96] and the Wieners' Bird Dogs.[97]
The album Marvin, Welch & Farrar (1971), by the British-Australian band of the same name, contains a track named after Don's place of birth, "Brownie Kentucky".[98]
Deerhunter's "Basement Scene" "intentionally nods to the Everly Brothers' 'All I Have To Do Is Dream'".[99]
In 2022, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant released Raise the Roof, which contained a cover of the Everlys "The Price of Love", produced by T-Bone Burnett.