The Everly Brothers

I’m stoked for the Roots box

i will add: Don Everly’s s/t 1970 record is fucking amazing.

I had a big Everly phase around the time of that poll, wish I'd known! Seems to me they've been in the air quite a bit since then (The Cactus Blossoms, a few tribute albums, that time I found out they covered Rank & File in the 80s, talking to Jeremy Jay right after Phil died) ...to a perhaps surprising degree given that thing you said about time.

Saddest part of that thread might be Finally here is a picture of Charlie and Phil. RIP, fellas. followed by a giant gray MTV logo.

a few tribute albums

The Norah Jones/Billie Joe Armstrong one is fantastic. Green Day should break up and he should only do that shit from now on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmnAOu124g4

xposts is there a roots box?! i've given it only a listen-and-a-half at this point, but i really like it. googling and reading things about it now, i see it frequently mentioned as an early country-rock classic, but i had no idea it existed. it's a great discovery because recently i've been spending a lot of time with gram parsons stuff (solo, super burrito bros., and byrds). i know that i'm listening to country-rock 101 but it fucking rules

and it's got a randy newman song on it! ("Illinois"). just really fucking cool.

i'm curious about your takes on this bit in the above-the-fold wikipedia summary for the everly brothers:

Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the group'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.

confirming your uncle's stale hot take about wikipedia being untrustworthy, this is no citation for this claim, and the way it's written is ambiguous: do they mean that because people were doing more drugs in the 60s, the everly brothers music got less popular because they were seen as corny by all the new stoners and trippers? or do they mean that the everly brothers themselves were doing more drugs in the 60s, and that was having a negative effect on their popularity? both seem wrong and irrelevant.

https://i.imgur.com/dXzEvzf.jpg

Iirc, like Elvis, they got hooked on uppers in the Army. Documentation is vague, but I recall reading about it, perhaps in the liners to the Walk Right Back set.

here’s the Roots box set I mentioned

oh, it looks like Roots is just disc 3! i'm really curious what their version of Mr. Soul sounds like!

Their early '70s TV show (vaguely remember watching it sometimes) would be worth seeing for the guests alone, but nothing on YouTube.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162803/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

One ilx take I remember which is presumably in one of those threads is edd hurt going on about the album they made with The Hollies, Two Yanks in England. I remember giving it a few spins but not totally getting into it.

That Hollies Everlys record has great moments but also drivel like “Fifi the Flea”.

Right. "Fifi the Flea" sticks out to me I think because it is written in some kind of generic minor key formula, one which I usually like.

Sharp Objects was all over the place--worth the time but a little exhausting trying to figure it out. The highlight of the whole thing for me was the Everlys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOYqUzQ2clc

I’ve been on an Everly Brothers kick lately, so glad to see this thread pop up. Was definitely a revelation to go through their entire 60s output—pretty consistently terrific despite the majority of their best known songs coming in the late 50s.

Yeah, I dig their 60s sides (incl. a scary string chart---inspired by a Mancini soundtrack, according to booklet, though sounds like Bernard Herrmann to me), the ones chosen for Walk Right Back. It's not LSDBeach Boys, though not like there's any shortage of that, and this is atmospheric enough.
The Hollies-written album seems like a dumping ground for pseudo-LSDylan wordage, though the tunes are okay enough for the Brothers track along with no prob, ho-hum.
Xgau liked their autobiographical studio tour de force of 1968, Roots, which is thoughtful, even-tempered, and unique., much preferring it to their '72 Stories We Could Tell.
For the early stuff, he picks Rhino's Best of and Music Club's This Is. Never heard those, but do have and enjoy Cadence Classics -Their 20 Greatest Hits, also on Rhino.

I knew (maybe) 5 or 6 of those 20 before I got it, which was 2 or 3 more than I was likely to hear on the radio, so def made for fresh listening.

The Norah Jones/Billie Joe Armstrong one is fantastic. Green Day should break up and he should only do that shit from now on.

haha, the wikipedia entry on the origin of that is kind of funny. bizarre to think this is real:

In an interview with Stereogum, Armstrong said: "It all started with Stevie Wonder. [laughter] We sang together with Stevie Wonder and his band and a whole bunch of people, that’s how Norah and I first met. Then … well, I got into the Everly Brothers’ record a couple years ago and I thought it was just beautiful. I was listening to it every morning for a while off and on. I thought it would be cool to remake the record because I thought it was sort of an obscure thing and more people should know about it, but I really wanted to do it with a woman singing because I thought it would take on a different meaning — maybe broaden the meaning a little bit — as compared to hearing the songs being sung by the two brothers. And so my wife said, 'Why don’t you get Norah Jones to do it?' and I was like, 'Well, I kinda know her.' Well, I mean, we had Stevie Wonder in common. And so I called her and she said yes. So it was kinda like a … well, I keep saying it was kinda like a blind date."[7]

sorry, just wikipedia diving here, but here's something that's new to me:

Around this time, the brothers also set up their own record label, Calliope Records, for solo projects. Using the pseudonym "Adrian Kimberly", Don recorded a big-band instrumental version of Edward Elgar's first "Pomp and Circumstance" march, which Neal Hefti arranged and which charted in the United States top 40 in mid-1961. Further instrumental singles credited to Kimberly followed, but none of those charted. Phil formed the Keestone Family Singers, which featured Glen Campbell and Carole King. Their lone single, "Melodrama", failed to chart, and by the end of 1962, Calliope Records had gone out of business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FVSmM0tfBk

they filled in for johnny cash's show in 1970: here is an episode w/ linda rondstadt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqFxMaO3O6o

"Bowling Green" is so good. It's a ghost: the Everly are from Kentucky, but these two Yanks have been to England, and Brownie is gone. But the girls there treat you right, without wearing a flower in their hair. Can you make a summer of love out of that Kentucky sunshine? Do they have that magic anymore? Well, it hit the top 40.

Thanks for Keestone Family Singers! The vocals on Goffin & King's "Melodrama" (re characters from "Dudley D-Right of the Mounties," parodic subseries of "Rocky and Bullwinkle,"the fave cartoon show of 60s hip kids and adults) might not have come through well enough on car and and handheld transistor radios of the time, but the playing is plenty rowdy---still, the overall mix doesn't pop up front like "Snoopy and the Red Baron, " or other 80s novelty hits. B-Side, "Cornbread and Chitlins," written by Glen D. Hardin, does have strong-enough droll lead vocals by Glen Campbell, but all concerned had other fish to fry.

Just heard this for the first time recently. Phil actually recorded it before the Hollies, and they basically copied this arrangement. Produced by Duane Eddy and arranged by Warren Zevon (!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdVA8YYpSMw

Zevon was their pianist in the early '70s.

Thanks! Why didn't co-writer Albert Hammond (Sr., Stroke's Dad) release it as a single, since wiki sez it was on the album titled for his Greatest Hit, It Never Rains In California?? About this song, Wiki adds:
The 1992 Radiohead song "Creep" uses a similar chord progression and shares some melodic content with the 1972 version of "The Air That I Breathe".[5] As a result, the song's publisher sued Radiohead for copyright infringement and a settlement was reached in which Hammond and Hazlewood were given co-writing credits as well as a portion of the royalties.[6][7][8]

Somebody---Lee Ann Womack, somebody---should do a new cover of this.

Maybe w fewer repetitions of the chorus, but still (that opening/closing verse!)

Fascinating ruling here in the case of Everly v. Everly, in which Phil's family and Don and his family are suing each other over who wrote "Cathy's Clown." (TLDR: The appeals court sent it back for further review.)

It paints quite a legal history of their relationship.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca6/19-5150/19-5150-2020-05-04.html

Wow.

They were so uncool by this point (and how quickly those early rock acts suffered that fate) but here's a smokin' performance of "Mama Tried" on Ed Sullivan in 1971:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSShrxN1xN4

Don rip.

Not seen a news page as such, but it was on Hoffman, and Wikipedia has been changed

It's been confirmed.

Man, Jerry Lee is very close to the last man standing for real.

Pulled up a dodgy-looking but genuine Cadence comp on Spotify. Nothing much to say other than "Poor Jenny" is really funny, and "I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail" is one of the most beautiful things in creation.

They had lots of jail songs!

"Take a message to Mary"

OK, three (at least)

The guy in "Man With Money" is probably headed there, and they also covered "Sing Me Back Home" and "Mama Tried".

...and "The Collector" is about imprisoning/holding someone hostage.

Too late now, but it's kind of sad that no one attempted or was able to execute an American Recordings-style project w/the Everlys doing stuff like "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" or some sad Beck songs.

Didn't Don and Phil loathe each other after a point? That might have been a harder task than just talking Johnny Cash into covering a few 90s songs.

Yeah, they had problems that seemingly only went away when they sang onstage. Iirc, Paul Simon personally asked them to open on the last Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour. They agreed, but travelled separately, only did a four song set, and to Simon's surprise, their first show was unrehearsed, as they hadn't been in the same room together in years.

Yeah, some bad, Beach Boys-level stuff apparently, although I shielded my mind and can’t recall much of it.

Yeah, they had problems that seemingly only went away when they sang onstage. Iirc, Paul Simon personally asked them to open on the last Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour. They agreed, but travelled separately, only did a four song set, and to Simon's surprise, their first show was unrehearsed, as they hadn't been in the same room together in years.

There's a sad, funny comment on that experience in one of Simon (or maybe Garfunkel)'s interviews after the fact, something like, "Man, I thought we had problems."

They famously broke up in 1973 at Knott's Berry Farm when one of them smashed a guitar on-stage and stormed off. I didn't much about it beyond that but I looked it up this morning and there is more to the story.

Love the Everly Brothers, for those looking for CD's, the best compilation to get for content and sound quality is the DCC Compact Classics reissue of The Everly Brothers' Best which has 18 tracks including one from their WB years, "Cathy's Clown." Rhino also had Cadence Classics: Their 20 Greatest Hits which I would recommend first except it sounds a little thin and piercing. Beyond that, the two-CD Walk Right Back: The Everly Brothers on Warner Bros. 1960–1969 is a great supplement to their Cadence stuff. They still had plenty of gems from their uneven Warner Bros. releases. The best LP is probably Roots, probably one of the first real country-rock albums - love that album, but regardless their Cadence singles remain their best.

Simply one of the greatest pop music acts of all time.

I suspect that Paul Simon felt, as we might feel, that the Everlys were too great, really, merely to be supporting him. (Or then again, maybe he didn't.)

Search: 'Bird Dog'. And the rest.

Agree w birdistheword's picks, although I had no probs w audio of Cadence Classics (on my lo-fi gear).
Xgau pick, which I've never seen:
This Is the Everly Brothers [Music Club, 1996]...All of the key moments are on this collection, which lists for $10, and while some may prefer the $20, 31-cut Laserlight triple-CD, I find that too soon their harmonies start sounding neat rather than sharp. This is their very best, epitomizing a strain of pubescence that can't be trusted to repress its horniness past the end of the song. To their elders they're always polite. With their peers they fuss, fight, and--in their all-they-have-to-do-is-dreams--fuck around. A

dang, xgau having some difficulty repressing his horniness at the end of his "song" there to, lol

the two-CD Walk Right Back: The Everly Brothers on Warner Bros. 1960–1969 is a great supplement to their Cadence stuff. They still had plenty of gems from their uneven Warner Bros. releases. And they easily fit between Byrds, Beatles, and some of Brian Wilson's orchestral tendencies (also soundtrack influences), w/o seeming to strain for trendiness. How's that 80s album produced by Dave Edmunds??

Varese Sarabande did a few nice comps of the Cadence stuff. I got my Dad the "18 Singles" set, and I recall it sounding nice.

In the article they say he died back in the '70s.

Never knew Don’s first name was Isaac like his dad, whose proper first name I didn’t know either.

Also, did someone say Chris Spedding?

While she was busy cutting hair, her sons would soon be busy cutting records.

I see what you did there, knoxnews.com

Lol at “Fifi the Flea,” although I think dow likes that one too. O hell no; eddhurt sent me a dub of Two Yanks, but the Hollies dumped too much crap (incl. the worst kind of pseudo-Dylanesque mid-60s verbiage, although the Brothers seemed unfazed, so maybe it wasn't really the worst). Should maybe listen again to their original and the one they wrote w Sonny Curtis.

Linda Thompson on fb:

Farewell Don Everly.
After a spectacular Everly Brothers concert in London, I went to the after party. Albert Lee introduced me to Don, who held my hand in a crowded bar, complimented my singing, and sang Dimming of the day to me. It’s a wonder I didn’t die on the spot.
They were my first musical loves. There’s never been a better sound than they had.

Wow, would love to have heard them cover ‘Dimming of the Day’.

The U.S. obituaries seem to cover the same ground - the NY Times one is the most comprehensive - but the Guardian's by Michael Gray (the same author of those Dylan books maybe?) is a good read, adding plenty of details others didn't.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/22/don-everly-obituary

My favorite quote excavated in several obits is Keith Richards calling Don "one of the best rhythm guitar players I ever heard" — the force of his strumming is the second-most distinctive thing about their songs imo, after the harmonies.

His memoir devotes a whole paragraph to Don's playing.

Absolutely. Early on when I was first learning about rock history, Robert Palmer's book An Unruly History... had a sidebar or paragraph on power chords, and it singled out the opening of "Bye Bye Love" as a perfect example. I think the only other example he used was either a Stones record or a Pete Townshend Who record. That alone got me to pay more attention to the guitar parts rather than focus completely on the vocals.

Guardian obit was good, thanks. Wondering who wrote “Cathy’s Clown” now. Obit and streaming services say Phil and Don, Wikipedia says just Don, don’t recall every reading anything about it, guess I can look at 45cat or something.

i believe wikipedia on this one

In November 2018, a judge ruled that Don was the sole writer of "Cathy's Clown", as Phil had relinquished his rights sometime before June 1980. Acuff-Rose Music, which owned the song publishing, and BMI (the brothers' rights society) removed Phil's name from all the royalty statements. In 2011, Don filed to regain ownership, with the estate of Phil following in 2014.[6]

Yes, those acoustic guitar intros- influenced by Bo Diddley, I think- really make the songs.

Great points about guitar work.

And Michael Gray - what a writer - his DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA is a wry labyrinth.

Have Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris weighed in yet?

Here Don mentions the direct lineage from Bo: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/thats_old_fashioned_capturing_the_sound_of_the_everly_brothers

Yeah, Chet Atkins bragged about exposing Pat Boone fans to Bo via the Bros.

Cool.

Here is your prior post about FtF:
Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Oh jeez, how did you remember that? I sure didn't And I just got this Edd tape, incl the Everlys' Two Yanks In England (orig 1966, reissued by Collectors Choice 05), which Edd brought up when we were first discussing The Outsider on the Rolling 2005 Thread...I can dub it for you, Frank, if you're still curious about the Everlys (and prob Roots and Songs Our Daddy taught us would be illuminating, but I don't have those). And yeah, they sound like the Daddys of the Rodneys. (icnl The Outsider and what he was doing when if not before he and his Cherry Bombs were hanging out with Nick and Carlene and Dave and Rockpile). They sound perfectly at home, invading the British Invasion. I do wish they did a few more of their songs and a few less of the Hollies, or more of the Hollies' hits, rather than some that are clunky verbose,in that shadow-of-the-Beatles-and-Dylan-damaged 60s way, neither making it as passionately adolescent wordspew, nor a show of chops, dognose But! Edd adds rather exhilarating (also mid-60s) bonus tracks, and I gotta admit the Hollies wrote several of my fave raves even before that. Like "Fifi The Flea." One of those that (like even some of the best Beatles and Dylan) would look not so hot as words on paper, but the tune and the singing add sooo much.

But I also mentioned in the post that Edd added some other good mid-60s EB tracks to the tape, and even then the results were pretty uneven.

So “Fifi the Flea” was not a fave rave after all.

Apparently it was! But can't bring myself to play it again, not yet.

Too soon?

Was really hoping “Cathy’s Clown” was an actual co-write, for the purposes of a certain other thread.

Don does a Louvin Brothers song on that solo album!

Just found their cover of "Lucille" (one of their first recordings for Warner Bros., during the brief span when they were still managed by Wesley Rose). Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" would consciously 'borrow' that guitar part a few years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CshTqvzg8m8

Good point. Always liked that “Lucille,” not sure if I made that connection.

Speaking of Richard & Linda and Don, somehow I just came across this Nanci Griffith(RIP) record Other Voices Too which has pretty good covers of both “Wall of Death” and “Walk Right Back.” She is an artist who is new to me, sorry to say, so not sure if everybody already knows that record or not.

Although I can’t tell if these are great covers or just okay covers of songs I love.

Quoted by Tyler on Twitter
Cale: "When we formed Thc Dream Syndicate l needed to
have a strong sound. I decided to try using guitar strings on
my viola, and l got a drone that sounded like a jet-engine!
PlyinS the viola in lhe just intonation system was so
exciting. The thing that relly amazed me about it was that
we played similarly to the way The Everly Brothers used to
sing. There was this one song which they sang, in which they
started with two voices holding one chord. They sang it so
perfectly in tune that you could actually hear each voice.
They probably didn't know they were singing just intonation,
but they sang the right intervals. And when those intervals
where in tune, as they were in The Everly Brothers and our
group, it is extremely forceful.
Cool, but whether or not the Bros had the term "just intonation," in some sense they knew what to do, or they couldn't have been as consistent in their EB Sound as they were.

(Sorry about the typos; I tried to catch all the glitches in the paste of the paste [of the--?], which weren't in Tyler's post.)

Nevertheless, a striking connection!

Come to think of it, I wonder if Cale also considered the aforementioned Diddly tendencies of the Everlys, shared w VU o course.

The Everly Brothers :: Songs Of Innocence And Experience (BBC Documentary) https://t.co/3PykGVS99I

Incredible 1984 hour and 44 minute BBC documentary chronicling the path of The Everly Brothers, from their Kentucky roots onward. pic.twitter.com/rKFzKh4Cot

— aquarium drunkard (@aquadrunkard) May 22, 2022

I’m so excited to celebrate music of The Everly Brothers on the Hey Doll Baby Virtual Festival today, June 19th. Streaming at 4pm ET on https://t.co/a4cIvNfRjR, the official Everly Brothers’ Youtube, Facebook, & on @SiriusXM’s Tom Petty Radio. #everlybrothers #gibson #tompetty pic.twitter.com/iTTvrNvuUd

— Susanna Hoffs (@SusannaHoffs) June 19, 2022

This was pretty cool, fun to watch.

Can I still watch it?

Yep, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9YCCsJV-U

Thanks. I kind of skim watched it but my head still exploded. So good for so many reasons.

lol watching this now and the chat was overrun by Brazilian Evanescence fans

hahahaha the explosion of black heart emojis in the chat when Amy Lee finally showed up to do a horrible duet with Dave Stewart

My takeaway is that the songs are so strong that I can usually at least tolerate and ofter enjoy most covers even if or especially if they are basically just trying to replicate the original versions. For me the canonical cover version I heard first and though nothing of the song until I finally heard the original was the Nazareth version of "Love Hurts."

I love "Love Hurts" so much that I even like the Nazareth cover, though the Joan Jett cover of the Nazareth cover is better.

That Dave Stewart/Amy Lee one isn't that hot tho.

Can’t say I expected this. Nor did I expect it to be good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4rEapho03g

Interesting

A very sweet 1984 production. Like a cushion of synth clouds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dg0vgbFY60

Written by Jeff Lynne to no one's surprise