Bye Bye Love: Remembering Phil Everly

Before the Beatles, there were the Everly Bros.

Chet Atkins (Renowned Guitar Player/Innovator and Music Executive)

As the Los Angeles Times and other media reported, Phil Everly, the younger of the rock n’ roll famous Everly Brothers, “died Friday, January 3, 2014 at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank [CA] of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” Phil was 74 years old.

Don and Phil Everly were not twin brothers, as some thought, but were close in age, just two years apart. And early on they were sometimes confused with their lean builds, hefty hair-dos and buxom Gibson guitars.

Don was the “lead singer,” and Phil the “harmony singer,” generally speaking, but truly their sound was “the Everlys'” plural: close, clean and crisp harmonies that heavily influenced the likes of the Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Buddy Holly, Simon and Garfunkel  and virtually every pop and country singer and songwriter to follow. Arguably The Everly Brothers are the most significant “duet” in music history. Their impact on modern music cannot be understated.

“During the height of their popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Everly Brothers charted nearly three dozen hits on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, among them ‘Cathy’s Clown,’ ‘Wake Up Little Susie,’ ‘Bye Bye Love,’ ‘When Will I Be Loved’ and ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream.’ They were among the first 10 performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it got off the ground in 1986.”

AllMusic.com

The Everly Bothers were from Kentucky and born of musical parents, Ike and Margaret Everly, who performed and toured professionally. They began singing together at a very early age and while still in just their teens, Nashville, the burgeoning Music City of the 1950s, was already beginning to show interest.

They made a debut record for Columbia in 1955 (“Keep on Loving Me”) but it failed to gain any popularity for the young act. In 1957, now signed to Cadence Records by their manager, Ashley Rose, their fortunes changed. Literally.

Perhaps never before or since has a mega-selling rock group been so associated with a particular writer or writing team as the Everly’s were to Acuff and Rose writers Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, who wrote or co-wrote most of the Everly’s biggest hits including their first million-seller “Bye Bye Love.” The songs from House of Bryant, AKA “Felice and Boudleaux” singularly launched the Kentucky duo into the stratosphere and world-wide acclaim. The “first professional songwriters in Nashville,” the Bryant’s also wrote “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and thirty or more major cuts by the duo.

The Bryants are also credited (by the Brothers) with schooling the boys in songwriting craft, leading them to write some of their biggest hits themselves, among them “Cathy’s Clown” and  “When Will I Be Loved.”

The Everly Brothers were my favorite rock and roll duo in the 1950s. Their harmonies were impeccable…to this day ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’ sums up the aching beauty of teenage romance….

Paul McCartney

Bye Bye Love Lyrics
(Words and Music by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant)

Bye bye love
Bye bye happiness, hello loneliness
I think I´m-a gonna cry-y

Bye bye love, bye bye sweet caress, hello emptiness
I feel like I could di-ie
Bye bye my love goodby-eye

There goes my baby with-a someone new
She sure looks happy, I sure am blue
She was my baby till he stepped in
Goodbye to romance that might have been

I´m-a through with romance, I´m a-through with love
I´m through with a´countin´ the stars above
And here´s the reason that I´m so free
My lovin´ baby is through with me

Bye bye my love goodby-eye
Bye bye my love goodby-eye