The Everly Brothers Break-Up

does anyone have a link to why the guys in later years never got along?
they toured briefly in the late 90's and appeared on the Simon/Garfunkel reunion tour....
but some point before or after, never could make amends in family, make recordings etc
A shame the guys couldn't end on a high in their personalities and some new music.
What is Don upto these days? you never hear or see him in anything.
Can't even find any recent interviews with the legendary 'Everly'.

RickB

 

I saw them in about 2005-ish in Oxford, it was a fantastic show, they were stilling sounding great.
That old saying 'you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family' goes I guess.
As for Don, last I read he was still very upset over the loss of his brother.
I'm glad to have seen them and pleased they made so much great music, one of my favourites.

 

the performance they did on the S&G 'old friends' dvd was the best I thought they sounded in years!!!!
lightning in a bottle that escaped

RickB

 

Can't point you to any great links, but it was the stress of being together for so long. Their careers had declined, they each had some independent talents that the breakup allowed them to develop, and there was the older brother-younger brother complex. I once read that Phil supported Reagan, and Don was much more liberal.

The Reunion in 1984 was really touching.

I often think their careers were very strange - why they didn't get more into country music puzzles me. I think it a great tragedy that they recorded so little in the 50s Cadence days.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...little-concord-singing-duos-relationship.html

They looked like a couple of teenage Mississippi riverboat gamblers, thin as blades with their white shirts, black waistcoats and luxuriant hair.

But when they picked up those black guitars, stood head-to-head close to the microphone and sang, a generation of budding schoolboy musicians pricked up its collective ears and listened.

They were the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, just 19 and 17, and back in the late Fifties when rock was young, too, they made a kind of music that was to outlast their own period in the spotlight by decades.





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Disharmony: Don, left, and Phil Everly made music that outlasted their own period in the spotlight by decades



Now there’s just one Everly Brother, Phil having died of a lung disease in a Los Angeles hospital on Friday, aged 74 — a result, his widow Patti said, of a lifetime of smoking.

Last night Don Everly was in mourning for his younger brother, but while the Everlys were famous for their close harmony on record, off stage there was little concord in their relationship.


As Phil said in 1970: ‘We only ever had one argument. It’s been lasting for 25 years.’

That feud reached its peak in 1973 when Don triggered a bitter ten-year separation by turning up drunk at a gig in California. After mangling the lyrics of Cathy’s Clown, soon he and Phil were arguing on stage.





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Feud: But while the singing duo were famous for their close harmony on record, off stage there was little concord in their relationship. As Phil said in 1970: 'We only ever had one argument. It's been lasting 25 years'



Then Don threw his guitar down, saying: ‘I’m through with being an Everly Brother.’

Phil journeyed on alone through the rest of the show until, aggravated by hecklers, he shouted back: ‘The Everly Brothers died ten years ago.’

Rock groups have always had their rows and breaks-ups, but the Everlys were family. It didn’t seem right. Yet when, a decade later, they reunited for a tour, they still didn’t get on.

I caught a glimpse of this in 1984, when they agreed to make their first album in years for rock star and producer Dave Edmunds.

My job was to interview them for a promotional documentary which was being released with the album, the idea being they would talk about their careers.





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Musical legends: The feud reached its peak in 1973 when Don, right, turned up drunk at a gig in California



Unfortunately they wouldn’t sit down together. Just when I thought I’d got them side by side in front of the camera, one or the other would leave. In the end, we settled for separate interviews.

‘It’s the same when they sing in the studio,’ Dave Edmunds told me. ‘Phil always wants me to record Don first, saying he’ll add his harmony afterwards — although he knows it doesn’t sound as good when they do it that way.’ Only on stage would they sing together.

So where did the animosity and sibling rivalry come from? Perhaps being forced to sing together from childhood, when they would perform on their family’s Country and Western radio show, left scars that never healed.

Most brothers are allowed to go their own way in life. The Everlys were tied together by the beauty of their voices, with the early fame of Bye Bye Love and All I Have To Do Is Dream locking them even closer.





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Sibling rivalry: The brothers' animosity may have derived from being forced to sing together during childhood



Each might have preferred a solo career, but when they did eventually go solo, neither sounded as good or had anything like the same success as they’d had together.

I got some idea of how far back the enmity went when a mutual friend who was working with them overheard a row between the brothers — then in their 40s — which carried on into the early hours in their motel room.

Between the shouting and sobbing, over and over again she heard both referring to their father, guitarist Ike Everly, who had nurtured their early careers.

'While the Everlys were famous for their close harmony on record, off stage there was little concord in their relationship'
‘Daddy said this . . .’ and ‘Daddy said that . . .’ went the allegations and counter allegations.

That, as adults, they weren’t more able to enjoy the gift they shared is sad, and perhaps there’s some truth in the suggestion that Don always felt he was upstaged by Phil’s sweet lilting tenor voice. ‘I’ve been a has-been since I was ten,’ he is alleged to have said.

It was a grudge he needn’t have carried, since his guitar playing brought the rhythm and his voice the perfect harmony to the pair.

Early British fans didn’t realise it, but the first signs of the Everlys’ problems appeared on their first tour of the UK in 1960, when Don, who was addicted to prescription drugs, had a nervous breakdown, leaving Phil to carry on with the tour alone.




Tied together: The Everlys, pictured in the late 1950s, were tied together by the beauty of their voices, with the early fame of Bye Bye Love and All I Have To Do Is Dream locking them even closer



They were at the very peak of their fame, but soon disastrous business decisions and the rise of The Beatles, who had learned so much from them, were making them look old fashioned. Gradually the hits dried up. It was said that Don privately hated The Beatles for taking their crown.

It was nothing personal, of course, and the Everlys were later happy to record a Paul McCartney song and were friends with George Harrison. But by that time, despite Phil having a hit when he duetted on She Means Nothing To Me with Cliff Richard in 1983, they were pop history.

'The Everlys were tied together by the beauty of their voices - with their early fame locking them even closer'
But what a legacy they left for those schoolboy musicians who’d been among their earliest fans. When Paul Simon recorded his album Graceland, he called the Everlys in to sing back-up vocals on the title track. And when he and Garfunkel reunited and played in London’s Hyde Park in 2003, the duo interrupted their act by bringing on Don and Phil to sing, a generous homage to the sound they’d copied.

Until last Friday there were probably still stalwart Everly fans hoping that the brothers might get back together for one last album or tour.

That can’t happen now. But few artists will garner the tributes that were paid to Phil Everly over the weekend as Bob Dylan, Tim Rice, Brian May, Gary Barlow, both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and dozens more tweeted their thanks to one half of the duo that created the most harmonious part of rock music.


Darryl

 

http://theboot.com/don-everly-phil-everly-difficult-life/

Don Everly on Brother Phil Everly: ‘We Had a Very Difficult Life Together’
By Gayle Thompson April 4, 2014 2:00 PM


Jo Hale, Getty Images
When Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers passed away, the music community mourned the loss of one of the most beloved artists of his generation. But perhaps no one was more shocked and saddened by his passing than his brother and duo partner, Don Everly, who is still trying to come to grips with his sibling’s death.

“We had a very difficult life together, we did,” he admits to the LA Times. “I’m not over it. I really feel sad. I think about him every day. I always thought about him every day, even when we were not speaking to each other. It still just shocks me that he’s gone.”

The brothers were almost as well known for their contentious relationship as their tight harmonies. After splitting up in 1973, they didn’t speak for almost a decade, reuniting only once, at their father’s funeral, and instead each pursued solo careers. They reunited again as a duo in the early ’80s, but their relationship for the next 20 years was marked by personal and professional highs and lows, and another lengthy period of being estranged from each other, before reforming to join Simon and Garfunkel for a world tour in 2003.

“It was hilarious that the four of us were doing this tour, given our collective histories of squabbling,” Paul Simon recalls to Rolling Stone. “And it’s amazing, because they hadn’t seen each other in about three years. They met in the parking lot before the first gig. They unpacked their guitars — those famous black guitars — and they opened their mouths and started to sing. And after all these years, it was still that sound I fell in love with as a kid. It was still perfect.”

But while the Everly Brothers may have had their personal differences, with some suggesting that they were not speaking at the time of Phil’s death, they always found common ground when they took the stage.

“He was a great singer, Phil,” Everly maintains. “We did that all our lives — it’s almost like we could read each other’s minds when we sang.”

Phil Everly passed away from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), brought on by an on-again, off-again cigarette addiction, but his brother says he still finds his death difficult to comprehend.

“I loved my brother very much,” he says. “I always thought I’d be the one to go first.”


Darryl

 

Very interesting, thanks for posting that. When we first started hearing Phil on his own, I was surprised at how sweet his voice was. It was a long time before I was aware that it was actually Don doing all the solo voice parts on their records as a duo. (I had not seen them in person or on TV when I was a kid first hearing their music in the early 60s)

 

It's a crime no one has written a definitive biography of the Brothers.
Still not too late though.....

 

Someone should ask Mark Lewisohn. Doesn't he have a lot of extra time on his hands?

 

I think the greater tragedy is how their contract dispute with Acuff-Rose led to them not writing original material for years. I think the Warner albums are great, and sound better than the Cadence stuff. But they did do stints in the Marines, which, undoubtedly cut into their peak hit making era.

 

Hanging around Simon and Garfunkel would be bad for anyone's relationship

 

i recall a comment from somebody (andrew, maybe?) some time back saying that they'd actually WRITTEN a full everly brothers bio, but that there was nobody looking to publish it.

it likely sits in a drawer, waiting for the inevitable everly brothers broadway musical to spark renewed interest.

(hmmmmmmm....)

smitquest

 

Also sad that Don isn't getting one of those Charlie Louvin/Mavis Staples rediscoveries. I'd so love to hear him sing again.

 

I think there's good stuff on the RCA and Mercury recordings too. In my opinion...

 

no kidding--on one of those "unheard recordings" releases on the varese label a few years ago, there was a clutch of what sounded like solo demos don cut, maybe in the mid-to-late 70's (some were covers of rare everly brothers songs from the mid-60's), with just an acoustic guitar, and WOW. The voice had matured beautifully, made me want to hear a whole RECORD of that--just don and a guitar, no band, no spit-and-polish, just good, honest music.

i'd LOVE to hear what he's got now...

smitquest

 

Those two Warner-era Bear Family box sets are essential.

 

I think the Everly Brothers would be a good subject for Peter Guralnick.

 

PG-rated!

 

I've always been sorry there was never one of those stellar tributes like the Roy Orbison B&W Night, for the brothers.

 

I'd just like to say The Everly Brothers were one of the best things to happen to music in the 20th Century. Love 'em. always will and even if their records had been rubbish (which they obviously weren't !!) we would owe them a huge debt for the influence they had on the 1960s pop artists from The Beatles down (or Beatles up depending on how you view them).
There will never ever be anyone like them again.
BTW there is a film of Don singing with Graham Nash at an awards ceremony from last year - what a combination but...

 

For later material I've always hoped the LP Living Alone by Phil might get a cd release. AFAIK it's the only album of either Don or Phil's solo careers that hasn't been released in digital format.

 

Don used to introduce themselves on stage with the line " The only people that have had more divorces than us are the Beach Boys"......

 

Curious. But what?

 

I was shocked by how little attention Phil's death got. They were such an important piece of Rock history. Strange.

 

There's good stuff on them, but it's spottier.