The Everly Brothers were a country-influenced duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. They were professionals way before their teens, schooled by their accomplished guitarist father Isaac Milford “Ike” Everly, Jr, and singing with their family on radio broadcasts in Iowa. 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.” In the mid-’50s, they made a brief stab at conventional Nashville country.
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.”
In 1966 they recorded an album with the Hollies (who were probably more blatantly influenced by the Everlys than any other British band of the time). The album, “Two Yanks in England“, is by The Everly Brothers while the backing band on most of the recordings is actually The Hollies, and eight of the twelve songs featured are credited to L. Ransford, the songwriting pseudonym of The Hollies’ Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are also purported to play on the record as session musicians. Also, in a recent interview with Nash on David Dye’s World Cafe, it is claimed Reggie Dwight (a.k.a. Elton John) played on the album.
In the late ’60s, they helped pioneer country-rock with the 1968 album Roots, their most sophisticated and unified full-length statement.
The decades of enforced professional togetherness finally took their toll on the pair in the early ’70s, which saw a few dispirited albums and, finally, an acrimonious breakup in 1973. They spent the next decade performing solo, which only proved — as is so often the case in close-knit artistic partnerships — how much each brother needed the other to sound his best. In 1983, enough water had flowed under the bridge for the two to resume performing and recording together. The tours, with a backup band led by guitarist Albert Lee, proved they could still sing well. The records (both live and studio) were fair efforts that, in the final estimation, were not in nearly the same league as their ’50s and ’60s classics.
Don Everly admitted that he had lived “a very difficult life” with his brother and that he and Phil had become estranged once again in later years, something which was mainly attributed to “their vastly different views on politics and life,” with the music being the one thing they shared closely, saying, “it’s almost like we could read each other’s minds when we sang.”
On January 3, 2014, Phil Everly died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Chet Atkins, a friend of their father Ike, played guitar on this. Atkins, who died of cancer in 2001, was a world-famous musician who created a distinctive sound using a 3-fingered picking technique.
Some Boston radio stations banned this song because of the lyrics, which imply that the young couple spent the night together. At the time, staying out late with a girl was a little controversial.
The song was ranked at #318 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
This was written by the husband and wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who wrote most of The Everly Brothers songs in the ’50s. This was a labor of love for the songwriting duo.
“We persevered with ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ for many hours,” Boudleaux recalled to Country Music People. “I started writing one night, kept trying to get my ideas down, but it just wouldn’t happen. Finally I woke Felice, who took one listen to what I had so far achieved and came up with the final touches that I couldn’t get.
“The Everlys liked the song, but like me had problems with getting it right in the studio. They worked a whole three-hour session on that one song and had to give up, they just couldn’t get it right. We all trooped back to the studio the next day and got it down first take. That’s the way it happens sometimes.”
The story of the Bryants began at an elevator in Milwaukee’s Schroeder Hotel. It was the spring of 1945 and the elevator operator was 19-year-old Matilda Genevieve Scaduto. While working, she struck up a conversation with a visiting musician from Georgia named Boudleaux Bryant. After five days, Boudleaux and Matilda ran off together.
For the next 30 years, as the husband and wife team of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, they went on to become one of the most successful songwriting teams ever. They produced hits for Tony Bennett, Eddy Arnold, Ruth Brown, Roy Orbison, Carl Smith, Charley Pride, Buddy Holly, Jim Reeves, Leo Sayer, Christy Lane, Joe Stampley and Moe Bandy and – most memorably – the Everly Brothers. They wrote “Let’s Think About Lovin'” for Bob Luman, and Boudleaux co-wrote “My Last Date” with Skeeter Davis. Boudleaux had an instrumental hit called “Mexico.” There was “Rocky Top” for Buck Owens, “Raining In My Heart” for Buddy Holly and “Love Hurts” for Roy Orbison.
They wrote the songs “Bye Bye Love”, “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Problems,” “Bird Dog,” “Poor Jenny” and “Like Strangers” for the Everlys as well.
Altogether it’s estimated that the songs of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant have sold 300 million records. The couple has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top-100 singles, 26 in the top 40 and hold the record for the most Top-100 singles by any duo. In 1986, the Everly Brothers were among the first 10 artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 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. The brothers were inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 1997, they were awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.
Ed Note: The Grateful Dead did a version of this song, as well.
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