In his recent visit to Portland, Graham Nash reminded his audience that “we are all trying to touch the flame”.  The flame of creativity and experience and wonder, I take that to mean.  For a young Graham , like many would-be creatives of that moment, a touchstone was The Everly Brothers.

ALL I HAVE TO DO  IS DREAM

eeff6a94

“When you talk about harmony singing in the popular music of the postwar period, the first place you start is the Everly Brothers,” Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammys Museum, said in a statement. “You could say they were the vocal link between all the 1950s great doo wop groups and what would come in the 1960s with the Beach Boys and the Beatles. They showed the Beach Boys and the Beatles how to sing harmony and incorporate that into a pop music form that was irresistible.”

Don Everly released this statement: “I loved my brother very much. I always thought I’d be the one to go first. I was listening to one of my favorite songs that Phil wrote and had an extreme emotional moment just before I got the news of his passing. I took that as a special spiritual message from Phil saying good-bye. Our love was and will always be deeper than any earthly differences we might have had. The world might be mourning an Everly Brother, but I’m mourning my brother Phil Everly. My wife Adela and I are touched by all the tributes we’re seeing for Phil and we thank you for allowing us to grieve in private at this incredibly difficult time.”

CHASING THE DREAM

Graham Nash was in Portland last November at Powell’s City of Books to tell us some of the wilder tales of his rocknrolla life. And that included a great story about he and his childhood friend Allan Clark hanging out after an Everly Brothers show in Manchester, well into the wee hours of a drizzly night,  just to catch a glimpse of the brothers. They did that and more. I pulled out Graham’s three great stories from our conversation,  about the influence Phil and Don had, not only on The Hollies, but Graham’s other “endeavors” and how it shaped his singing and harmony style.

 

 

billie-joe_2741858b

The Everly Brothers influence stretched long and wide, and in fact even to this day, it’s felt. Most recently it was Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones who just released Foreverly. It is an album of reinterpretations of the 1958 album Songs our Daddy Taught Us.

 





PRP
Latest posts by PRP (see all)