Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Phil Everly, who with his brother Don formed an influential harmony duo that touched the hearts and sparked the imaginations of rock ’n’ roll singers for decades, including the Beatles and Bob Dylan, died Friday. He was 74.
Everly died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at a Burbank hospital, said his son Jason Everly.
Phil and Don Everly helped draw the blueprint of rock ’n’ roll in the late 1950s and 1960s with a high harmony that captured the yearning and angst of a nation of teenage baby boomers looking for a way to express themselves beyond the simple platitudes of the pop music of the day.
Phil and Don Everly sing some of their hits in August 1997 at the 10th annual Everly Brothers Homecoming concert in Central City, Ky. Click to see more photos from the Des Moines Register. (Photo: Suzanne Feliciano / Associated Press)
The Beatles, early in their career, once referred to themselves as “the English Everly Brothers.”
The Everlys’ hit records included the then-titilating “Wake Up Little Susie” and the universally identifiable “Bye Bye Love,” each featuring their twined voices with lyrics that mirrored the fatalism of country music and a rocking backbeat that more upbeat pop. In all, their career spanned five decades, although they performed separately from 1973 to 1983. In their heyday between 1957 and 1962, they had 19 top 40 hits.
Don Everly was born in 1937 in Brownie, Ky., to Ike and Margaret Everly, who were folk and country music singers. Phil Everly was born to the couple on Jan. 19, 1939, in Chicago where the Everlys moved to from Brownie when Ike grew tired of working in the coal mines. The brothers began singing country music in 1945 on their family’s radio show in Shenandoah, Iowa.
Their career breakthrough came when they moved to Nashville in the mid-1950s and signed a recording contract with New York-based Cadence Records.
The duo performed on the “Grand Ole Opry” early in their careers and were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
