THE EVERLY BROTHERS
The Price Of Fame
*****
Bear Family (79.51) (76.21) (71.21) (78.54) (76.18) (71.51) (77.35)
Everything harmonises in the studio for Don and Phil, but everything else is falling apart.

This review appeared in Record Collector, January 2006.

Tucked away in the lavish book which accompanies The Price Of Fame boxed-set, Don Everly comments, “We were associated with the Fifties. Being The Everly Brothers in the Sixties was a handicap.” Playing through the 228 tracks that they recorded for Warner Brothers between 1960 and 1965, I think he is wrong. There were many other factors and it was not simply being old-fashioned which put them out of favour.

After three very successful years for Cadence, The Everly Brothers signed with the new Warners Brothers record label and the first single was the triple awesome Cathy’s Clown, which Don wrote about a former girlfriend. Phil praises Buddy Harman’s drumming and says, “When he did that Cathy’s Clown riff, yeah, bam, we were home.” Their first Warners album, It’s Everly Time, featured their exquisite harmonies on So Sad and Sleepless Nights and the second, A Date With The Everly Brothers, included a barnstorming version of Little Richard’s Lucille and the first recording of Love Hurts, which should have been a single. It looked as though the Everlys’ success would continue onwards and upwards, but they argued with their manager and music publisher, Wesley Rose, over a revival of Bing Crosby’s Temptation, and as a result they were denied new songs from the Acuff-Rose writers. “Had Wesley been publishing Temptation, it would have been a different story,” says Don.

In 1961, deprived of Acuff-Rose songs and looking towards a family audience, they recorded an album of standards, Both Sides Of An Evening, but despite a beautiful version of Don’t Blame Me, the material (Little Old Lady, My Mammy) was suspect. Still, they must have felt okay about it because the fourth Warners album, Instant Party!, was more of the same. Neither album had the resonance or significance of their 1958 album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.

The Everly Brothers’ salvation should have come in 1962 when they allied themselves to the Screen Gems’ writers and gathered strong material from the hippest writers of the day - Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. To my ears, Crying In The Rain is the best record they ever made and No One Can Make My Sunshine Smile isn’t far behind. They were the first to record Chains, but their version, unissued at the time and with percussive effects, did not capture the song’s potential, and despite 36 takes, no one thought I Can’t Say Goodbye To You was worth releasing. Similarly, the Everlys failed to spot the possibilities of the devastatingly good Love Her, from Mann/Weil. Don comments, somewhat uncharitably, “They didn’t give us You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ unfortunately. That would have been good for us.”

Don was taking drugs and as a result, became obsessed with perfection. He wanted to record Nancy’s Minuet over and over again and even a novelty like Roger Miller’s Burma Shave took endless takes. The Everly Brothers came to the UK in October 1962 and the British press said Don was forced to abandon the tour because of “food poisoning”. In the informative Bear Family book by Andrew Sandoval, we learn that he was “drugged out” and had attempted suicide. Phil Everly completed the tour as a solo artist and it is a shame that none of the performances were recorded. It was hardly surprising that their album, Christmas With The Everly Brothers And The Boys Town Choir, was a missed opportunity to do something distinctive with seasonal material. It was intriguing to read that the formation of the choir was the subject of the 1938 film, Boys Town, starring Spencer Tracy.

When Don recovered, they had trouble regaining their momentum. It’s hard to generalise from one outtake but you can hear them falling apart on Baby Bye-Oh and I’m not surprised as it’s Jackie DeShannon’s worst-ever song. In June 1963 they upped the ante with The Everly Brothers Sing Great Country Hits, backed by Glen Campbell, Sonny Curtis and Leon Russell. Nothing startling here but lovely, sorrowful versions of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry and Born To Lose. The Everlys returned to the UK and toured with the Stones and Bo Diddley, before recreating their Cadence hits for The Very Best Of The Everly Brothers. Okay, but directionless.

The Everlys made it up with Wesley Rose – and this called for celebration as Wesley bought a wig (contrast pages 16 and 94 in the book). The resulting album, Gone Gone Gone, had a driving title song but it was a mish-mash. Far and away the best performance from 1964 was the highly dramatic The Ferris Wheel with Buddy Harman drumming to rival Cathy’s Clown. Their albums of beat group favourites, Rock’n Soul and Beat & Soul, feature top musicians like Billy Preston, but they were standing still. Much better was their raucous single, The Price Of Love: this deservedly climbed to No.2 in the UK but it didn’t even make the US Top 100. The massed guitars of Hollywood contributed to two further great cuts, Love Is Strange and Man With Money, their own composition and later revived by The Who. That takes us to the end of 1965 and a second box will complete their career with Warners, which lasted until their break-up in 1972.

The nine hour marathon includes every song that the Everlys recorded for Warners between 1960 and 1965, frequently with outtakes. Does anyone need five outtakes of Dancing On My Feet? I would have preferred hearing the outtakes of Ebony Eyes as I’m sure Don had trouble nailing that narration. And what about that infamous session where they had a fight in the studio? Why are we given the backing tracks for He’s Got My Sympathy, I’m Walking Proud and Night Time Girl? If Bear Family intend us to sing along, they should have provided the lyrics. The Coca-Cola commercials are as pointless as them fluffing promotional cues.

Bear Family claim that the CDs contain 29 previously unissued recordings. I made it 25, and they are not new songs but outtakes of songs we’ve heard before. Of the songs which weren’t issued at the time, I loved the slow harmonies of Nothing Matters But You and the folk-rock of I’ll See Your Light.

As always with Bear Family, the packaging is inspirational and the full colour, 188 page hardback book is packed with information and photographs. Admittedly the Evs often look as though they were posing for Knitwear Korner or Tuxedo Times. No wonder they got on each other’s nerves: they had to agree what clothes to wear every day.

Spencer Leigh