By Dale Y the Green Guy
When you go back to the roots of rock and roll, perhaps no other influence was greater than the Everly Brothers. Don and Phil Everly took country music, rocked it up and added some of the most perfect harmonies ever heard in the music world. Their harmonies were so distinctive, that rock and roll bands from all over the world, tried to copy how they did it. So great was their influence over early rock and roll, that at one time, John Lennon and Paul McCartney decided to call themselves the “Foreverly Brothers.” No more higher a tribute than that can ever be had
Phil was the younger Everly, Don being a couple of years older, and they toured extensively with the other pioneer of rock and roll, Buddy Holley, in the late 50’s. Their first hit was “Bye Bye Love,” and it showcases the harmonies on which the Everly sound would forever be known.
The Everly Brothers and Bye Bye Love, right at the beginning of their career.
The music greats, then and now, were all influenced by the Everly’s. Simon and Garfunkel, The Eagles, and even Billie Joe Armstrong, of Green Day fame, along with Nora Jones, put out an album of all Everly brothers covers. The Everly’s crossed over in both musical genre’s and musical generations.
Here are the Everly Brothers, at their peak, with “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” and, “Cathy’s Clown.”
Phil Everly always did the high harmonizing parts. He would let brother Don handle the melody while his voice soared over the top. As you listen to these songs, you are hearing music history, and voices from the ages, that are as fresh now as they were all that time ago. Their beauty was together, and no one can write about Phil without including brother Don in the same sentence. They were as inseparable as Yin and Yang, and with Phil now gone, the musical world shall forever remain unbalanced.
Perhaps their best known song, “Wake Up Little Susie,” my personal favorite and just an overall great tune.