Phil Everly, a long time gone

Since I heard about the death of Phil Everly, I have been going through the brothers' catalog of songs. To be honest as I think back through the music of my day, I realized I have overlooked them and as I listened to one song or another I was reminded about how much of their music was a part of that background of my life.

Critics of 50s rock and roll point to the simplicity of it and the simplicity of the lyrics mostly confined to teen love. But those early rockers including the Everly Brothers, taking their influences from blues and country, laid the groundwork for what was to come in the breakout 60s and more than a few performers have given credit back, particularly for the harmonies the brothers sang so adeptly.

Billie Joe Armstrong of the newer rock group Green Day wrote a tribute on the death of Phil and pointed out something the brothers had said about the evolution of their harmonies, something I would not have considered on my own. Growing up as brothers in the same house and singing from early childhood, they learned to speak words exactly the same way. The result was when they sang, the way they voiced the words matched each other perfectly, making their harmonies that much tighter. Listening to their songs now with that revelation in mind makes them all the more remarkable.

Several modern rockers including Armstrong spoke up after the news pointing to the brothers' influence on later music and cited several other acts who sang in close harmony.  Incidentally just this year, Armstrong and Norah Jones had released an Everly Brothers tribute album called "Foreverly."

In his song, "Let 'em in" Paul McCartney paid his own tribute years ago with this selection from the lyrics:

"SISTER SUZIE, BROTHER JOHN,
MARTIN LUTHER, PHIL AND DON,
BROTHER MICHAEL, AUNTIE JIN,
OPEN THE DOOR, LET 'EM IN, OH YEAH."

Phil Everly was 74 when he died this week, another in the growing list of rockers near my age who have died in recent years. We are getting older and as we do we lose people along the way, some we knew well, some we were aware of and some who provided the musical score to the movies of our lives. Phil Everly was one of the latter, half a duo who seemed to have another hit every other week through the late 1950s, songs that complemented first dances, sock hops, first loves and lost loves and being just three years older than I am, speaking to my own experiences as someone who was living them right along with me.

There is nothing I could write that would express this pairing of aging and loss better than Eugene O'Neill who wrote: "I used to think growing old was about vanity – but it's actually about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial."

That even includes people we have never met.



Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones "I'll be a long time gone."


Billie Joe Armstrong's tribute to Phil Everly in The Wall Street Journal.