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Bye Bye Love, Hello Rage: The Everly Brothers Implode · Jon's WTF Music Moments

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to John's WTF Music Moments, the podcast
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: where music history gets weird enough that you start asking, wait,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: are we sure this actually happened? And today's story is
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: about two brothers who sang together so beautifully that they
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: influenced the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, the Byrds,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and pretty much every famous harmony duo that came after them.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I am, of course, referring to the Everly Brothers. Those warm,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: silky smooth harmonies seem to link those two brothers from
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: womb to tomb, as they say. And then one night
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  Speaker 1: in 1973, one of them smashed his guitar and walked
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: off stage. And the other one basically told the audience, yeah,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the Everly Brothers died 10 years ago. What the hell
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: are we even doing here? But before we get to
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  Speaker 1: the guitar smashing, let's establish something. The Everly brothers weren't
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: some obscure country act who had one novelty hit and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: then just disappeared. These guys were huge. Don and Phil
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Everly were brothers from Kentucky who grew up performing with
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  Speaker 1: their parents. They were performing professionally while they were still kids.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And by the late 1950s, They had become one of
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  Speaker 1: the biggest acts in America. Bye-bye, love. Wake up, little Susie.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: All I have to do is dream. Devoted to you,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Kathy's clown. Let it be me. These guys had hits.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of hits. And their sound. It was revolutionary.
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  Speaker 1: Don generally sang the lower part and Phil the higher harmony.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And they had this incredibly tight, almost eerie vocal blend.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: The Beatles were huge Everly fans. Paul Simon has talked
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: about how he and Art Garfunkel got their vocal chops
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: from the Everlys. The Beach Boys were influenced by them.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So were countless other artists. The Everlys weren't just successful.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: They helped establish the blueprint for the harmony-based rock music
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that followed. And singers still follow it today, decades later.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Which makes what happened in 1973 even more bizarre. Because
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: these weren't two guys who had just met in a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: recording studio. They were brothers who had basically spent their
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: entire lives together. And that turned out to be the problem.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So by the early 1970s, the Everly brothers were exhausted.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Think about the situation. They'd been performing together since childhood.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: They had spent roughly two decades traveling together, recording together,
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  Speaker 1: performing together, and quite literally, standing next to each other
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  Speaker 1: on stage. They had marriages that didn't work. They had children.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: They had business problems. They had declining record sales. Come on, folks.
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  Speaker 1: By the early 1970s, You had Peak Rolling Stones, Zeppelin,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Elton John, The Who, Pink Floyd, Bowie. Nobody was too
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: concerned about what the Everly Brothers were doing. And they
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: had spent years dealing with the pressures of the music business.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And there was another bigger problem. They didn't particularly like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: being around each other anymore. The official Everly Brothers history says,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: describes them as having become increasingly worn out with the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: brother act. By 1973, they had even started using separate microphones,
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  Speaker 1: a stark contrast to what they were known for earlier
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  Speaker 1: in their career. So, yeah, for the Everly brothers, that's
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: basically the musical equivalent of a married couple getting separate bedrooms.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And Don, he had reached the point where he wanted out.
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  Speaker 1: He'd already started pursuing a solo career. So they decided
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: that 1973 was going to be the end of the
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  Speaker 1: Everly Brothers. They had a series of shows booked at
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Knott's Berries Farm in Buena Park, California. Think about that,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Knott's Berry Farm. And this was supposed to be the end,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: not necessarily forever. They were talking about taking a break,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: but there was a problem. Because apparently, the Everly Brothers
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  Speaker 1: couldn't just take a break. No. They had to make
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it spectacular. So here we are. Knott's Berry Farm. July 14, 1973.
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  Speaker 1: John Wayne Theater. And the audience has come to see
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the Everly Brothers. Now, according to multiple accounts, Don shows
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: up to the performance having been drinking. A lot. Some
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: accounts specifically describe his drink of choice as being tequila. Margaritas, specifically.
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  Speaker 1: And this was a problem because Don wasn't exactly operating
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  Speaker 1: at peak Everly. He was forgetting lyrics. He was singing off-key.
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  Speaker 1: His performance was erratic and filled. Well, he was becoming
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: increasingly pissed off. Imagine being filled. You've spent your childhood
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  Speaker 1: and adult life singing harmony with this guy. You know
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  Speaker 1: exactly how this song is supposed to go. And now,
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  Speaker 1: your brother is standing next to you, drunk off of margaritas,
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  Speaker 1: forgetting the words to songs you've probably performed tens of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of times. And you're thinking, are you fucking kidding me?
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  Speaker 1: Phil tried to keep things moving, but eventually, he snapped.
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  Speaker 1: He got angry. He got really angry. Phil Everly took
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  Speaker 1: his guitar and smashed it on stage. And then he
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  Speaker 1: walked off stage. Done. Finished. No encore. No heartfelt goodbye. No,
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  Speaker 1: thank you, Buena Park. We'll see you again someday. Get
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  Speaker 1: home safe. Nope. Guitar, stage, smash, exit. The Everly brothers
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  Speaker 1: were finished. And here's where the story gets even better.
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  Speaker 1: Don didn't exactly respond by saying, Phil, wait, let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about this brother. Instead, he continued the show alone. And
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  Speaker 1: at one point, the audience wanted to know where Phil was.
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  Speaker 1: Don reportedly gave them the ultimate answer. Well, the Everly
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  Speaker 1: brothers died 10 years ago. Holy shit. That's not a breakup.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: That's a musical obituary delivered by one of the deceased.
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  Speaker 1: But wait, it gets weirder. Here's something I love about
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: this story. The Everly brothers had actually been planning to
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  Speaker 1: stop performing altogether. So the Knott's Berry Farm explosion wasn't
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  Speaker 1: completely out of nowhere. They were already burnt out. They
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  Speaker 1: had already decided they needed time apart, but somehow they
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: managed to turn a professional separation into one of the
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  Speaker 1: most spectacular public breakups in music history. And then they
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  Speaker 1: really did stay apart for 10 years. According to Everly
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  Speaker 1: Brothers' official history, during that decade, they spoke only once
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  Speaker 1: at their father Reich's funeral in 1975. Don moved back
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  Speaker 1: to Nashville. Phil stayed in Los Angeles. They pursued solo careers.
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  Speaker 1: Neither one came remotely close to matching the success they
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  Speaker 1: had together. And here's the ironic part. They were individually
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: capable musicians and singers. But the thing that made them
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  Speaker 1: special was the combination. You could have Don. You could
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: have Phil. But you couldn't really have the Everly brothers
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  Speaker 1: without both of them. Yeah, and... Here's another very interesting,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: fantastic WTF detail. One of the musicians who had been
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  Speaker 1: involved with the Everly Brothers around this period of their
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: demise was a young keyboard player named Warren Zevon. Yes,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that Warren Zevon. The future werewolves of London guy. Howl!
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  Speaker 1: Zevon had been part of the musical world surrounding the Everlys,
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  Speaker 1: and he played on their 1972 album, Stories We Could Tell.
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  Speaker 1: So somewhere in the history of this incredibly bizarre period
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in Everly Brothers' history is Warren fucking Zevon. Which is
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  Speaker 1: exactly the kind of detail that makes me love music history,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Because you start digging into one story
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and suddenly you're like, wait, Warren Zevon was there? That
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Warren Zevon? So here's the part that makes this story
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: much more interesting than simply brothers fight, brothers never speak. again,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: because they eventually reconciled, sort of. In 1983, Don and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Phil reunited at the Royal Albert Hall in London, 10
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: years after Knott's Berry Farm, 10 years after the smashed guitar,
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  Speaker 1: 10 years after The Everly brothers died 10 years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and it wasn't some tiny little reunion in a VFW
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: hall or an opening act for a puppet show at
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: an amusement park like in Spinal Tap. It was the
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  Speaker 1: Royal Albert Hall, and the reunion was successful. So successful
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  Speaker 1: that they went back into the studio. They started touring
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  Speaker 1: together again. And then something happened that is so ridiculously
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  Speaker 1: perfect that it almost feels scripted. Paul McCartney wrote them
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  Speaker 1: a song. That's right. The song was called On the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Wings of a Nightingale. McCartney had been an enormous Everly
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Brothers fan since he was a teenager. He specifically wrote
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: that song for them. And the Everlys recorded it for
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: their 1984 comeback album, EB-84. McCartney even played guitar on
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  Speaker 1: the recording. And the album also featured songs written by
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  Speaker 1: the likes of Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynn, and it was
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  Speaker 1: even produced by Dave Edmonds. While EB-84 wasn't necessarily a
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  Speaker 1: huge commercial and critical success, the brothers, who had publicly
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  Speaker 1: destroyed their relationship on stage, were back together, singing beautiful
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  Speaker 1: two-part harmony, which honestly, it's really, really nice. But wait,
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  Speaker 1: you think we're done, don't you? Not quite. We've got
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about Don Everly's daughter. Her name was Erin Everly.
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  Speaker 1: In the late 1980s, Erin became romantically involved with a
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  Speaker 1: young singer by the name of Axl Rose. Yes, that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Axl Rose. You remember, the guy from Guns N' Roses.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where the Everly family tree takes a
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: sharp turn from 1950s country pop harmony into 1980s hair metal.
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  Speaker 1: Because Axl's relationship with Aaron inspired one of Guns N'
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  Speaker 1: Roses' biggest songs. Maybe you've heard of it, Sweet Child
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  Speaker 1: O' Mine. Rose himself said that Aaron was the person
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  Speaker 1: who had inspired him to write a happy love song.
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  Speaker 1: And if you're wondering how serious the relationship got, well,
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  Speaker 1: they got married in Las Vegas in April of 1990.
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  Speaker 1: The whole thing was apparently pretty spontaneous. They got into
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a limousine. They went to Vegas. They got married at
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the Cupid Chapel. And then, well, Axl filed for divorce
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  Speaker 1: about a month later. The marriage was eventually annulled in
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  Speaker 1: January 1991. So let's review the music history. Don Everly,
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  Speaker 1: one half of the Everly brothers, whose brother smashed a
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  Speaker 1: guitar and walked off stage, had a daughter who married
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  Speaker 1: Axl Rose, who wrote Sweet Child of Mine about her.
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  Speaker 1: And then the marriage lasted approximately five minutes in rock
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  Speaker 1: star time. You can't make this shit up. So did
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  Speaker 1: the brothers actually make up? Yes, Don and Phil Everly
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  Speaker 1: did make up. But let's be careful here. They reconciled
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  Speaker 1: professionally and personally enough to perform and record together again.
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  Speaker 1: They toured occasionally. They made music. They were inducted into
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  Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. They
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  Speaker 1: received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. And they
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  Speaker 1: continued on and on, occasional performances for years. But like
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  Speaker 1: most families, it wasn't necessarily some perfect Hollywood ending. They
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: still had their differences. Because apparently being brothers doesn't magically
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  Speaker 1: become easier just because you're famous, right? Their last major
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  Speaker 1: period of performing together ended in the early 2000s, and
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  Speaker 1: eventually they became estranged again. So this wasn't they fought,
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  Speaker 1: then hugged, and everything was wonderful forever, and so on
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  Speaker 1: and so on. It was more like they fought, stayed
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  Speaker 1: apart for 10 years, eventually realized they still needed each other, reunited,
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  Speaker 1: worked together for another couple of decades, and continued being brothers.
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  Speaker 1: Which may actually be more believable. And then comes the
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  Speaker 1: sad part. Phil died first, January 3rd, 2014. He was 74.
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  Speaker 1: The cause? Complications from COPD. Don was the older brother,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and he later said something incredibly poignant. I always assumed
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  Speaker 1: I would go first. He also said I think about
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: him every day. And that's the thing about the Everly brothers.
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  Speaker 1: They could fight. Oh boy, could they fight. They could
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  Speaker 1: hate working together. They could walk away from each other
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  Speaker 1: and become estranged for 10 years. They could smash guitars.
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  Speaker 1: They could stop talking. But they couldn't really erase what
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: they were, because the Everly brothers weren't just a musical partnership.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: They were two brothers who had been singing together since childhood.
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  Speaker 1: And there was something about their voices together that neither
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: could recreate alone. Phil Everly died in 2014. Don seven
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: years later in 2021, at the age of 84. So
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the final score, Phil 2014, Don 2021. And after all
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: those decades of fighting, touring, breaking up, reuniting, fighting again,
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  Speaker 1: and making some of the most influential music in American history,
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  Speaker 1: they ended up being remembered together, as they always had been.
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  Speaker 1: And maybe that's the real WTF Music moment. The Everly
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  Speaker 1: Brothers spent their entire lives trying to figure out how
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  Speaker 1: to be two separate people. But history kept turning them
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  Speaker 1: back into one thing. The Everly Brothers. They were brothers.
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  Speaker 1: They were competitors. They were collaborators. They were best friends.
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  Speaker 1: They were enemies. And sometimes they were all of those
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  Speaker 1: things at the same time. They gave us some of
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  Speaker 1: the sweetest harmonies in popular music. And then, in July 1973...
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: They gave us one of the ugliest endings imaginable. A
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  Speaker 1: smashed guitar, a brother walking off stage, leaving the other
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  Speaker 1: brother quite inebriated on stage, standing in front of a
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  Speaker 1: confused audience announcing the Everly brothers died 10 years ago.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Except they didn't. Because 10 years later, they were standing
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  Speaker 1: together at the Royal Albert Hall, singing again. And maybe
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that's the weirdest part of all. You can walk away
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  Speaker 1: from your brother. You could stop talking. You can smash
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  Speaker 1: that guitar. You can even declare the band dead. But
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: sometimes the harmony is still there. I'm John, and I'll
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: be back soon enough with another WTF Music Moment.