Biography:

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 duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio singing along with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as “The Everly Family” in the 1940s. When the brothers were still in high school, they gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like 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 the major label 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 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. 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 with 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

Family and education

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 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]

1950s

While in Knoxville the brothers found work performing on Cas Walker’s Farm and Home Hour, a regional radio and TV variety program, before the brothers caught the attention of family friend Chet Atkins, manager of the RCA Victor studios in Nashville.^[19] Shortly thereafter their mother moved the family to Nashville.^[20] Despite affiliation with RCA Victor, Atkins somehow arranged for the Everly Brothers to record for Columbia Records in early 1956. Their “Keep a-Lovin’ Me”, which Don wrote and composed, flopped, and they were dropped from the Columbia label.^[21]

Atkins introduced the Everly Brothers to Wesley Rose, of Acuff-Rose music publishers. Rose told them he would secure them a recording deal if they signed to Acuff-Rose as songwriters. They signed in late 1956, and in 1957 Rose introduced them to Archie Bleyer,^[22] who was looking for artists for his Cadence Records. The Everlys signed and made a recording in February 1957.^[20] “Bye Bye Love” had been rejected by 30 other acts.^[20] Their record reached No. 2 on the pop charts, behind Elvis Presley‘s “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear“, and No. 1 on the country and No. 5 on the R&B charts.^[20] The song, by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant,^[23] became the Everly Brothers’ first million-seller.

Working with the Bryants, they had hits in the United States and the United Kingdom, the biggest being “Wake Up Little Susie“, “All I Have to Do Is Dream“, “Bird Dog“, and “Problems“. The Everlys, though they were largely interpretive artists, also succeeded as songwriters, especially with Don’s “(Till) I Kissed You“, which hit No. 4 on the US pop charts.^[24]

The brothers toured with Buddy Holly in 1957 and 1958. According to Holly’s biographer Philip Norman, they were responsible for persuading Holly and the Crickets to change their outfits from Levi’s and T-shirts to the Everlys’ Ivy League suits. Don said Holly wrote and composed “Wishing” for them. “We were all from the South”, Phil observed of their commonalities. “We’d started in country music.”^[25] Although some sources say Phil Everly was one of Holly’s pallbearers in February 1959, Phil said in 1986 that he attended the funeral and sat with Holly’s family, but was not a pallbearer.^[16] Don did not attend, saying, “I couldn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t go anywhere. I just took to my bed.”^[25]

1960s–1970s

After three years on Cadence, the Everlys signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1960,^[7] where they recorded for 10 years. Their first Warner Bros. hit, 1960’s “Cathy’s Clown“, which they wrote and composed themselves, sold eight million copies and became the duo’s biggest-selling record.^[26] “Cathy’s Clown” was number WB1, the first selection Warner Bros. Records ever released in the United Kingdom.^[27]

We’re not Grand Ole Opry … we’re obviously not Perry Como … we’re just pop music. But, you could call us an American skiffle group!

— NME – November of 1960^[28]

Other successful Warner Bros. singles followed in the United States, such as “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)” (1960, pop No. 7), “Walk Right Back” (1961, pop No. 7), “Crying in the Rain” (1962, pop No. 6), and “That’s Old Fashioned” (1962, pop No. 9, their last top 10 hit). From 1960 to 1962, Cadence Records released Everly Brothers singles from the vaults, including “When Will I Be Loved” (pop No. 8), written and composed by Phil, and “Like Strangers“.^[29]

In the UK, they had top 10 hits until 1965, including “Lucille“/”So Sad” (1960, No. 4), “Walk Right Back”/”Ebony Eyes” (1961, No. 1), “Temptation” (1961, No. 1), “Cryin’ in the Rain” (1962, No. 6) and “The Price of Love” (1965, No. 2). They had 18 singles into the UK top 40 with Warner Bros. in the 1960s. By 1962, the Everlys had reportedly earned $35 million from record sales.^[30] In 1961, the brothers had a falling out with Wesley Rose during the recording of “Temptation”. Rose was reportedly upset that the Everlys were recording a song which he had not published and, hence, for which he would not be paid any publishing royalties. Rose made efforts to block the record’s release. The Everlys held firm to their position, and as a result, in the early 1960s, they were shut off from Acuff-Rose songwriters. These included Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who had written and composed most of their hits, as well as the Everlys themselves, who were still contracted to Acuff-Rose as songwriters and had written several of their own hits. From 1961 through early 1964, the Everlys recorded songs by other composers to avoid paying any royalties to Acuff-Rose. They used the pseudonym “Jimmy Howard” as writer or arranger on two selections they wrote and recorded during this time. This ruse, however, was ultimately unsuccessful, as Acuff-Rose gained legal possession of the copyrights once the deception was discovered.^[31] 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. The Everly Brothers’ last United States top 10 hit was 1962’s “That’s Old Fashioned (That’s The Way Love Should Be)”, a song recorded but unreleased by The Chordettes and given to the brothers by their old mentor, Archie Bleyer.^[29]

In succeeding years the Everly Brothers sold fewer records in the United States. Their enlistments in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in October 1961 took them out of the spotlight.^[32] One of their few performances during their Marine service was on The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 18, 1962, when they performed “Jezebel” and “Crying in the Rain” while outfitted in their Marine Corps uniforms.^[33][34]

Following their discharges from active duty, the Everlys resumed their career, but with little success in the United States. Of their 27 singles on Warner Bros. from 1963 through 1970, only three made the Hot 100, and none peaked higher than No. 31. Album sales were also down. The Everlys’ first two albums for Warners (in 1960 and 1961) peaked at No. 9 US, but after that, of a dozen more LPs for Warner Bros., only one made the top 200 – 1965’s “Beat & Soul“, which peaked at No. 141.^[35][36]

The brothers’ dispute with Acuff-Rose lasted until 1964, when they resumed writing and composing as well as working with the Bryant spouses. By then, however, both of the Everlys were addicted to amphetamines. Don’s condition was worse, as he was taking Ritalin; his addiction lasted three years, until he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized to treat his addiction.^[37] The mainstream media did not report that either brother was addicted. When Don collapsed in England in mid-October 1962, reporters were told he had food poisoning;^[38] when the tabloids suggested he had taken an overdose of pills, his wife and his brother insisted he was suffering physical and nervous exhaustion.^[39] Don’s poor health ended their British tour; he returned to the United States, leaving Phil to carry on with Joey Page, their bass player, taking Don’s place.^[40]

Though their U.S. stardom had begun to wane two years before the British Invasion in 1964, their appeal was still strong in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. The Everlys remained successful in the United Kingdom and Canada for most of the 1960s, reaching the top 40 in the United Kingdom through 1968 and the top 10 in Canada as late as 1967. The 1966 album Two Yanks in England was recorded in England with the Hollies, who also wrote many of the album’s songs. The Everlys’ final U.S. top 40 hit, “Bowling Green“, was released in 1967.^[41]

By the end of the 1960s, the brothers had returned to country rock, and their 1968 album, Roots, was hailed by some critics as “one of the finest early country-rock albums”.^[42] However, by the end of the 1960s, the Everly Brothers had ceased to be hitmakers in either North America or the UK, and in 1970, following an unsuccessful live album (The Everly Brothers Show), their contract with Warner Bros. lapsed after ten years. They were the summer replacement hosts for Johnny Cash‘s television show in 1970; their variety program, Johnny Cash Presents the Everly Brothers, was on ABC-TV and featured Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Wonder.^[43]

In 1970, Don released his unsuccessful first solo album. The brothers resumed performing in 1971 and issued two albums for RCA Records in 1972 and 1973. Lindsey Buckingham joined and toured with them in 1972. The Everlys announced their final performance would take place on July 14, 1973, at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, but tensions between the two surfaced and Don told a reporter he was tired of being an Everly Brother.^[44] During the show, Phil smashed his guitar and walked off. Don performed solo the following night, commenting to the audience “The Everly Brothers died ten years ago”.^[45] The two would not reunite musically for more than ten years.

Credits:

Wikipedia