Don Everly, the elder of the two Everly Brothers, died at his home in Nashville on Saturday, according to reports. The Everly Brothers, composed of Don and his younger brother Phil, who passed away in 2014, had 35 singles in Billboard’s Top 100 and were part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural ten artists. Don Everly was 84 years old.
Raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, the brothers found their sound in Nashville in the late 1950s, under the aegis of performer and producer Chet Atkins. Their signature use of rhythmic guitars and close harmonies—with Don carrying the melody and Phil singing higher—was found on their first major hit, “Bye Bye Love,” in 1957.
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote that song, and the team quickly collaborated again on the hits “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Problems,” “Bird Dog,” “Take A Message To Mary,” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream.”
In 1960, the brothers recorded their biggest seller, “Cathy’s Clown,” a highly influential track in which one can hear coming developments in popular music, specifically the British Invasion. “Cathy’s Clown” was so beloved by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that they toyed with calling their new group “The Foreverly Brothers” before choosing the pun-driven name that stuck.
Other Everly Brothers fans include Paul Simon, who called them “the most beautiful-sounding duo I ever heard” and Bob Dylan, who said, “we owe these guys everything – they started it all.” Keith Richards once commented that Don Everly was “one of the best rhythm guitar players I’ve ever heard.” Graham Nash said meeting the brothers in 1960 changed his life.
Though they were beloved for harmonizing on their recordings, it wasn’t always that way in life. Indeed, it was only this May, years after Phil’s death, when a federal judge finally put to rest a long-standing argument over who actually wrote “Cathy’s Clown.” (Legally, the rights now belong with Don’s heirs, but as The Tennessean writes, much of the claim “boils down to timing.”)
Into the 1960s, the group’s popularity waned in the United States, but they were still a top act in Canada, Britain, and Australia. In 1973, the duo split up in a very dramatic fashion, with Phil smashing his guitar on stage and storming off, leaving Don to finish the show alone.
Don then formed a more honky tonk-style group called the Dead Cowboys, while Phil recorded some solo albums and appeared in the Clint Eastwood film, Every Which Way But Loose. (He was also credited as Sondra Locke’s vocal coach.) The brothers reunited in 1983 at London’s Royal Albert Hall, but later, the pair again became estranged.
In 1986, Neil Young inducted the Everly Brothers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, saying that his earliest bands were a failed attempt at “trying to get [their] sound.”
In Don’s later years, he moved to Kentucky and bought a hotel, which later burned down. He was remembered fondly on Twitter by musicians Dave Davies, Ron Sexsmith, Julian Lennon, Nancy Sinatra, Rodney Crowell, and others.
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