Everly Brothers: ten best songs - Telegraph
Rock and Pop Music
Everly Brothers: ten best songs
From Bye Bye Love to Cathy's Clown, cellist and fan Julian Lloyd Webber    picks out the Everly Brothers' ten best songs. Younger brother Phil Everly    has died
 
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Phil (left) and Don Everly performing in the Royal Albert Hall in a reunion concert. Phil Everly, the younger brother, died on 4 January 2014 aged 74  Photo: Redferns/Pete Cronin
 
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Everly Brothers: Phil (l) and Don performing on the television show Thank Your Lucky Stars  Photo: Redferns/Getty
By Julian Lloyd Webber
11:41AM GMT 04 Jan 2014
Bye Bye Love
1957
Don and his younger brother Phil Everly grew up on radio. By the ages of eight and six they were regulars on their mum and dad's weekly "Everly Family Radio Show". Chet Atkins introduced the boys to Nashville, where they were signed by Wesley Rose of Acuff-Rose music. Bye Bye Love was reputedly turned down by 30 acts before Don added his famous guitar intro to Boudleaux and Felice Bryant 's bouncy ditty and made it a worldwide hit.
Wake Up Little Susie
1957
Fearing that the slightly risqué lyric - with its whiff of premarital sex - would restrict radio play, producer Archie Bleyer had been against releasing this specially composed Bryant song. But being banned in several US cities helped its sales no end and it proved an even bigger hit than Bye Bye Love.
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All I Have To Do is Dream
1958
A change of pace as the Bryants deliver the first of the many classic ballads they wrote for the brothers. Phil acknowledged their debt to the Bryants on Boudleaux's death in 1987: "Without Boudleaux we'd still be doing some heavy lifting somewhere." A masterly performance that ensured their first UK No 1.
('Til) I Kissed You
1959
"Never knew what I missed 'til I kissed you," wrote Don about a girl he met on tour in Australia. Backed by a trio of former Buddy Holly "Crickets", drummer Jerry Allison came up with an intro almost as memorable as his work on Holly's Peggy Sue.
Let it Be Me
1960
Their final single for Archie Bleyer's Cadence Records proved an oddity. Bleyer added (rather over-intrusive) strings for the first time. Yet the tune is pretty enough and the brothers sing like angels. Hear this and you'll know why Let it Be Me remains Phil's favourite Everly Brothers track.
Cathy's Clown
1960
A new beginning as Wesley Rose negotiates the first "million dollar" deal in recording history with Warner Bros. Don produced an early rock anthem and the brothers' clever use of unison on the words "here he comes" breaking into harmony with "it's Cathy's clown" must have sounded irresistible to four young Liverpool wannabes.
So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)
1960
How poignant Don's words "we used to have good times together, but now we watch them slip away" must have seemed when their personal and professional partnership began to disintegrate in the late 1960s. Asked in 1970 if they ever quarrelled, Phil quipped: "We've only had one argument. It's been lasting 25 years." Eventually breaking up in 1973, the brothers reunited at the Albert Hall in 1983 (having famously refused to speak to each other during the intervening 10 years).
Walk Right Back
1961
The Crickets' Sonny Curtis wrote this upbeat smash hit while serving in the army. When he first showed it to Don and Phil he had written only one verse. Two weeks later Curtis returned with a second verse - only to discover that they'd already recorded it by singing the first verse twice.
Temptation
1961
Because of the extreme limitations of two-track recording, Don and Phil hired eight guitarists and told them all to tune slightly differently, thereby creating an eight-track sound on one track. It worked, and the emphatic "yeah, yeah, yeah" chorus is an obvious forerunner of The Beatles' She Loves You.
The Price of Love
1965
Their own composition, The Price of Love finds Don and Phil playing the "British Invasion" - which they had done so much to inspire - at its own game. Slurring and sneering, the brothers intone: "Wine is sweet, gin is bitter, drink 'em all but you won't forget her" to the accompaniment of pounding guitars and a wailing harmonica.