OCTOBER, 2026
HERITAGE MUSIC REVIEW
ELECTRONIC EDITION: Now free to email subscribers and supported by tasteful, music-oriented advertising with a unique news-format approach.
A monthly guide to early rock, blues, country, folk, and traditional jazz in the Seattle area and beyond.
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CONTENTS—october, 2026
Part 8:
NEW BIOGRAPHY EXAMINES THE FACTORS BEHIND THE EVERLY BROTHERS' "BLOOD HARMONY"
WHAT's IN STORE: News From The Musical Marketplace
CHECKIN' OUT THE SOUNDS: October Music CALENDAR (next message)
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PART 8: NEW BIOGRAPHY EXAMINES THE FACTORS BEHIND THE Everly BROTHERS' "BLOOD HARMONY"
By Doug Bright
Summary of Parts 1-7:
"The Everly Brothers have long mattered to me," biographer Barry Mazor writes in the introduction to his new book. "Their music has been part of my life at every stage." Mazor's new work from long-respected book publisher Da Capo is entitled
The Everly Brothers Story.
Ike Everly, Don and Phil's father, had grown up laboring in the coal mines of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, but fortunately, he found an alternative, picking guitar and singing with his brother Charlie. In 1929 Ike, Charlie, and a third Everly sibling formed a working trio and took off for Chicago but didn't accomplish much, so Ike returned home. His next chance at success came in 1932 with a five-piece country band, yielding a radio spot on WGBF in Evansville, Indiana. He considered it his first real job.
The most significant aspect of his subsequent return home was a relationship with Margaret Eva Embry, whom he married on August 15th, 1935. Don was born February 1st, 1937, and only six weeks later, Ike moved his family to Chicago. "It would be his appearances in the rowdy honky-tonks along Madison Street that began to bring him attention," Mazor elaborates.
Phil Everly was born in 1939, and in 1943 the family found a new home in Shenandoah, Iowa. They had traveled there on recommendations from some of Ike's musical contacts, and as a result, he was hired as a staff musician by the area's most prominent radio station, KMA.
When the whole family appeared on the station's Christmas show in 1946, Nine-year-old Don sang "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" and seven-year-old Phil sang "Silent Night". By 1949 Ike had his own daily show, and a year later the Ike Everly Family Show was born.
By 1953 Knoxville, Tennessee, was becoming a Mecca for country music talent under the auspices of supermarket owner Cas Walker and the chain of stores he promoted over a number of regional stations on his Farm and Home Hour show. "We drove into Knoxville and went up to ask Cas Walker for a job," Margaret Everly recalled, "and he hired us."
Their musical orientation was still country, but by this time Don and Phil were taking an interest in the sound of black vocal groups like the
Clovers
and the
Drifters
with impassioned lead vocalists, close background harmony, and an infectious backbeat. "Sometimes it didn't please the sponsor," Ike recalled in a 1958 interview.
The conflict finally came to a head in mid-1954 when Cas Walker fired the Everlys and canceled their show. With their musical career abruptly ended, Ike and Margaret Everly were forced to reinvent themselves, and both became hair stylists. Nevertheless, a radical change came about through Ike's continued correspondence with his old friend from Kentucky,
Merle Travis,
who was by now a regular on the Grand Ole Opry.
Travis had begun talking up Ike's fingerpicking skills to a rising young guitar phenomenon named
Chet Atkins,
who was running a song publishing company in Nashville called Athens Music. They met in person when Atkins came to Knoxville to play the Tennessee Valley Fair, and Ike said, "Chet, I got two boys that I think are pretty good. Do you think you could do anything for them?"
Impressed by the two teenagers' intelligence and sophistication, Atkins gave them his phone number in Nashville and promised to listen to the songs Don was writing. Of all the songs Don sent him over the course of a year, Atkins was particularly impressed with one called "Thou Shalt Not Steal", which he successfully submitted to the reigning "Queen of Country Music,"
Kitty Wells.
Wells' heartfelt delivery and steel-guitar-driven backup gained the record all the success it deserved, lifting it to Number 14 on Billboard magazine's country chart. Its success was all the evidence its young composer needed to prove he was on the right career path. The development that cemented the family's decision to move to Nashville was a letter that Margaret received from Mrs. Chet Atkins, informing her that he had managed to place another of Don's songs, "Here We Are Again", with
Anita Carter
on RCA victor, but it didn't fare nearly as well as its predecessor had done.
Relocated to Nashville, the boys and their mother moved into an apartment in the nearby town of Madison, where Margaret quickly found a job cutting hair at a Nashville department store managed by a former neighbor from Kentucky. Ike continued in the same line of work back in Knoxville before coming to Madison, but eventually, Barry Mazor writes, "he and Margaret went off to Hammond, Indiana, where she cut more hair and he worked construction again. The boys lived alone in Madison now."
Through Atkins, the Everlys met talent scout Troy Martin, and he, in turn, hooked them up with Columbia Records. A hastily assembled recording session yielded four of Don's songs, two of which were released on a single in February 1956, but as Mazor points out, "nerves, hurry, and minimal care seemed to have ruled the day. When the first single tanked, the option on the Everlys' contract was not picked up."
With their recording contract amounting to nothing and checks from the song publisher spent, the Everlys found themselves in bare survival mode for a while. "By all accounts," Mazor summarizes, "they were ready to pack it all in and look for construction work alongside Ike."
Fortunately, the last stop on their way out of town put them in touch with Wesley Rose, who managed the biggest publishing house in Nashville, Acuff-Rose. Rose was impressed with their audition demo and contacted Archie Bleyer at Cadence Records in New York, for whom he was starting a country label. "They signed a three-year contract with Cadence on February 21, 1957," Mazor relates.
The three years the Everlys spent with Cadence and the songwriting team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant produced such unforgettable
hits
as "Bye Bye Love", "Wake Up, Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", "Devoted To You", "Bird Dog", "Problems", "Take A Message To Mary", "Poor Jenny", "Let It Be Me", and finally, Phil's composition
"When Will I Be Loved".
Three days before it was recorded, however, the Everly Brothers were officially signed to the two-year-old Warner Bros. label with an unprecedented ten-year, million-dollar contract.
The deal immediately yielded two more Top 10 hits: Don's
and
"Cathy's Clown",
their biggest one so far. Two masterful albums followed:
It's Everly time
and
A Date With The Everly Brothers.
Buoyed by the increased artistic freedom that came with their Warner contract, the Everlys experimented more and more boldly as time went on. "Over the summer of 1960," Mazor elaborates, "they became fascinated with fast-evolving studio technology, turning to it especially on songs by others they wanted to customize."
"We kept trying to do innovations," Phil elaborates in Mazor's book, "because the basic element of rock and roll was change."
"When Don started producing some of the Warner Brothers sessions," adds recording engineer Bill Porter, "he really challenged you. He basically had me trying to do things that were three or four years ahead of their time—what you'd do with multitrack recording."
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The remainder of 1960 brought two of this writer's favorite Everly songs for their next hit single.
"Walk Right Back"
had been written by their friend Sonny Curtis of the Crickets. Its flipside, composed by hitmaker John D. Lowdermilk, was
"Ebony Eyes",
a ballad about a young serviceman who summons his fiancee for a wedding at the base where he's stationed but loses her to a plane crash.
The song was riding the crest of a teen tragedy craze that began with
Mark Dinning's
1959 hit "Teen Angel". Barry Mazor dismisses it as "maudlin", and to my astonishment, the Everlys apparently agreed. "There would be those who loved "Ebony Eyes," he observes, "others who'd forever go out of their way to avoid it—Don and Phil themselves among them." Nevertheless, it made Billboard's Top 10 at Number 8, just one point behind "Walk Right Back".
Although their contract with manager/publisher Wesley Rose wasn't due to expire for another year, the Everlys were fed up with his heavy-handed management style by April 1961 and sent him a formal letter of dismissal. He responded by demanding 10 percent of everything they had earned during the previous year plus damages. "A financial settlement was reached by November," Mazor writes, "and Wesley Rose was out as the Everlys' manager. However, Acuff-Rose remained their publisher, and there he had leverage. It became clear that he had effective veto power over use of any Acuff-Rose songs, old or new—whether from the Bryants or, unbelievably, Phil and Don's own. All Acuff-Rose songs were taken out of bounds for the Everly Brothers, damaging everybody."
"The movie careers that didn't happen and the denial of Acuff-Rose songs were not the only problems arising," he continues. "Don and wife Mary Sue separated formally on August 15, 1960, as "So Sad," the song their situation inspired, reached number Seven on the pop charts. The divorce was finalized by January 1962. Sue was granted custody of baby Venetia Ember, and Don had visitation rights—which he would not pursue. Don and Mary Sue had married young, under pressured 1950s circumstances, and never gotten past wanting different things."
All the professional and personal turmoil they were experiencing left both Don and Phil exhausted. They avoided the trap of uppers and downers into which many of their fellow country artists were falling, but on Archie Bleyer's recommendation, they consulted Dr. Max Jacobson, dubbed "Doctor Feelgood" by a growing list of high-profile patients. "Jacobson was configuring various vitamin and pharmaceutical "cocktail" injections, however unconventional, intended to deal with exhaustion and stress," Mazor explains. "For Phil and Don, the principal drug he administered and prescribed was what became known commercially as Ritalin, later prescribed for childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD."
"At the beginning," Don elaborates, "you don't realize what's happening. I got to a point where I couldn't go onstage without it. Ritalin made you feel energized. You could stay up for days. It just got me strung out."
Recording sessions resumed in Nashville toward the end of May 1961, resulting in an album called
Both Sides of An Evening.
With side One designated "For Dancing" and Side Two dubbed "For Dreaming", it attempted to make up for the loss of the Acuff-Rose songbook with a dive into pop songs of yesteryear, with very mixed results.
Trying to adapt the sentimental Tin Pan Alley standard "My Gal Sal" to the Everlys' pop-rock style was a bad idea that only reflected the Warner producers' desperation for material, and though Don and Phil gave it their best effort, it was doomed to insignificance from the start. "Grandfather's Clock", another well-known song from the turn of the twentieth century, might have suited the vintage country-folk setting of the 1958 album
but the decision to cast it as an early Sixties dance tune invokes a popular expression from my childhood: "It takes brains to be that stupid!" "Bully of the Town" was a staple in the old-time Southern repertoire of Don and Phil's father, Ike, but the gimmicky country-pop arrangement it received, including the kind of high-pitched steel guitar track worthy of a sci-fi movie, turned a well-sung performance into a ridiculous caricature.
On the other hand, some of the album's vintage pop adaptations worked surprisingly well. "My Mammy", an old specimen of Southern motherhood veneration from the 1920's, became an ingeniously Everlyesque country rocker. "Chloe", which might have seemed an equally unlikely prospect, adapted astonishingly well to the Everlys' wailing, bluesy delivery and a slow-grooving pop-rock accompaniment. A Vaudevillian romler called "Mention My Name In Sheboygan", complete with strummed banjo and old-style saloon piano, seems a similarly improbable choice for the Everly Brothers, but the result is so contagiously fun-filled that it works anyway.
As for the album's "Dreaming" side, such numbers as "Hi-lilli, Hi-lo", "Now Is The Hour", and "When I Grow Too Old To Dream" were fairly well suited to the Everlys' ballad style. The lesser-known and charmingly reverential "Little Old Lady" might well rate as the most moving performance of the set.
Although the album didn't chart, it yielded a Top Twenty single with the 1932 classic "Don't Blame Me". Even its flipside, a rockabilly adaptation of Merle Travis's folk-based "Muskrat", got some airplay, weighing in at Number 82.
Commenting on the making of the album, Phil summarized, "We had to get an album out, so we fooled around with that stuff. We knew the songs; we just couldn't find the songs. I don't know what the hell we were thinking."
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(This article will be continued in the next issue of Heritage Music Review. Your copy of Barry Mazor's book BLOOD HARMONY: The Everly Brothers Story is waiting for you at Phinney Books, 7405 Greenwood Avenue North in Seattle.
Phone: 206/297-2665. Web: www.phinneybooks.com).
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WHAT's IN STORE: News From The MUSICAL Marketplace
Find New Everly Brothers Biography At Phinney Books
"The Everly Brothers have long mattered to me," biographer Barry Mazor writes in the introduction to his new book. "Their music has been part of my life at every stage." The book is entitled BLOOD HARMONY: The Everly Brothers Story, and Your copy is waiting for you at Phinney Books in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood.
Phinney Books
7405 Greenwood Avenue North
Web: www.phinneybooks.com
Phone: 206/297-2665
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Beginner Guitar Workshop At Dusty Strings
Dusty Strings Music Store and School in Seattle's Fremont district, long known for its array of fine stringed instruments and instructional workshops, is hosting a guitar workshop for beginners led by Johnny Akamu. "This workshop is all about having fun while we learn the fundamentals of what it takes to play guitar," he says. "You don't have to be an amazing musician to learn guitar. All you need is time, curiosity, and fun!" Registration deadline is Wednesday, October 22.
Dusty Strings Music Store and School
3406 Fremont Avenue North
Phone: 206/634-1662
Web: www.dustystrings.com
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1931 Martin At Emerald City Guitars
Emerald City Guitars in Seattle's Pioneer Square, well known for its fascinating selection of new and vintage acoustic and electric guitars and accessories, has recently acquired a 1931 Martin OM-28 acoustic guitar. "This 1931 Martin OM-28 is a remarkable pre-war example that we recently obtained from a world-class producer who originally sought out the ideal studio/session guitar," the website elaborates "Its integrity remains, and David Eichelbaum recently brought it to top-notch playability. It plays beautifully and sounds incredible, with the resonance and responsiveness that make these early 14-fret OM's so special."
Emerald City Guitars 83 South Washington Street
Web: www.emeraldcityguitars.com
Phone: 206/382-0231
On The Newsstand: Heritage Music Review
The print edition of Heritage Music Review is available by subscription for $15 per year plus $5 postage and on sale at the following Seattle newsstands and music venues:
FREMONT:
American Music: 4450 Fremont Avenue North
Dusty Strings Acoustic Music Shop: 3406 Fremont Avenue North
UNIVERSITY DISTRICT:
Bulldog News: 4208 University Way Northeast
GREENWOOD:
Phinney Books: 7405 Greenwood Avenue North
CAPITOL HILL:
Elliott Bay Book Company: 1521 10th Avenue
PIONEER SQUARE:
Emerald City Guitars: 83 South Washington Street
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