THE EVERLY BROTHERS – Rock ‘n Soul – (Warner Brothers) – 1965

I though Zager & Evans would certainly have got some response … nup … everyone must be stunned by the depth and wisdom in my comments?

I was quite excited about getting this LP even though it cost $5US in a batch of records I bought from a guy in the US (I also got the companion album "Beat 'n Soul"). Still the anal obsessive in me was happy as I have about twenty Everly Brothers albums (most of their material) so I need to complete the collection. You can get into trouble doing that though (my Lou Reed and Bob Dylan collecting are examples).

Since I was a kid growing up in the 1970s I have liked 1950s music and 1950s artists. My first record was a Elvis 45 (Steamroller Blues b/w Fool on the RCA Yugoton label I got in 1973 in Croatia, in the then Yugoslavia, whilst on holidays), as was my second and third records. The next record I got was Chuck Berry, then Jerry Lee Lewis, Suzi Quatro, AC/DC. I was hardly contemporary. Some time in the mid 80s I got into the Everly Brothers – I even saw them live.

The influence of the Everly's cant be underestimated – their twin harmonies influenced The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Hollies, Simon and Garfunkel and others. They also were not afraid to mix it up a bit and put some straight country on rock albums and vice versa and really pioneered (in the mid to late 60s) what became known as "country rock" … about the same time if not before Gram Parsons added his magic touch to the same..

As biographies go … they had the usual problems of good ol southern boys (Kentuckians) … pills, broads etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everly_Brothers

The beauty, however, is in their voices and arrangements which, by and large, they orchestrated. Their early hits are well known and their voices fully soar in epic teen mini operas. By the mid 60s their hits had dried up in the US but they were still big stars in the UK.

The beauty is that their 60s albums, though of variable quality, were unpredictable – beat, roots country, rock, ballads – they really vacillated between albums and within albums, even though everything was centered and grounded on their harmonies. You can always tell a Everly Brothers record.

This album is a covers album of mainly "oldies" (with one exception – "Dancing") made up of late 50s hits. It's probably one of the earliest "oldies" covers albums,  something The Band (Moondog Matinee), Bowie (Pin Ups), Lennon (Rock and Roll) would all do later. The songs, though, are not played as 50s songs with the arrangements being distinctly mid 60s. The album is guitar heavy and by that I don't mean "heavy guitar" just the guitar is up front and prominent with their voices. And, fuck me, I sat here thinking this sounds like James Burton's guitar (because it sounds much like the guitar on Ricky Nelson's 60s recordings which Burton played on). After much googling I found it was in fact Burton who plays guitar. For those of you who don't know who he is, he was (is) a bona fide guitar legend at 16 and eventually became Elvis' guitarist in the 70s (the pink Paisley Telecaster dude). He had quite a distinctive sound – even to my untrained non-musicians ears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burton

James Burton Discography: http://www.stuntwalletmusic.com/news/James%20Burton%20Discography.pdf

Jimmy Page on Burton: "Mind you, it took a long time before I got anywhere, I mean any sort of dexterity. I used to listen to Ricky Nelson records and pinch the James Burton licks, learn the note for note perfect.  … I met Beck through a friend of mine, who told me he knew this guitarist I had to meet who'd made his own guitar. Beck showed  up with his homemade guitar one day and he was really quite good. He started playing this Scotty Moore and James Burton stuff; I joined in  and we really hit it off well".

and for what its worth he was #20 on the "Rolling Stone 100 greatest Guitarists of all time":

"James Burton mainly plays a dark-red '53 Fender Telecaster that he bought in a Louisiana music store when he was thirteen. He's performed a lifetime's worth of hot licks and fluid solos on it, on songs such as Dale Hawkins' "Susie Q" and Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou." As an in-demand Sixties sessionman, Burton played often-uncredited guitar and Dobro on countless records by artists ranging from Buck Owens and Buffalo Springfield to Frank Sinatra. In the Seventies he anchored the touring bands of Elvis Presley and Emmylou Harris. Burton's country-rock style combines flatpicking and fingerpicking; he's also a master of a damped-string, staccato-note "chickin' pickin'." http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/5937559/page/15?commentPage=2#rate

What I like about Burton is he isn't flashy with in your face lead breaks or attention grabbing stage jumps yet in the background you can see/hear he is doing all this great work and playing rock, country, blues and jazz and mixing them all up in the same song sometimes. (As a kid I even went to see Elvis "groan" Costello at Festival Hall in 1987 because Burton was in his backing band, The Confederates, as were two other members of the real Elvis' band. I eventually saw him tour in the "Elvis Show" a few years back also).

Back to the Everlys …

All the tracks are fine and the Everly's haven't been particularly "faithful" to any of them – which is good. Which tracks are the best depend on which original tracks you prefer. Having said that a couple of non-covers would have spiced things up a bit. These "hit" tracks are so identifiable with other artists, despite the fact that the Everly's have altered them substantially, you tend to sit there and say "oh look what they have done with this track" rather than getting sucked into the music. The album isn't as great as some of their others but it is definitely a pleasant curio.

The tracks – with the original artists noted – are:

• "That'll Be the Day" (Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, Norman Petty) – Buddy Holly – The Everly's have slowed this right down and it is a touch jarring but it does set the tone for the album.

• "So Fine" (Gribble, Weiss) – The Fiestas.

• "Maybellene" (Chuck Berry, Russ Fratto, Alan Freed) – Chuck Berry – a more country version of what was a song by a Afro-American done in a country style (Chuck lifted the melody from an old country song "Ira Red").

• "Dancing in the Street" (Marvin Gaye, Ivy Jo Hunter, William "Mickey" Stevenson) – Martha and the Vandellas.

• "Kansas City" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Richard Penniman) – Wilbert Harrison.

• "I Got a Woman" (Ray Charles) – Ray Charles and Elvis – the arrangement sounds closer to Elvis' version to my ears but then again Elvis version was reasonably close to Ray's version.

• "Love Hurts" (Boudleaux Bryant) – The Everly Brothers – an in joke as its a re-record of their own hit and they totally changed the tempo of the song.

• "Slippin' and Slidin'" (Edwin Bocage, Albert Collins, Richard Penniman) – Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly etc.

• "Susie Q" (Eleanor Broadwater, Dale Hawkins, Stan Lewis) – Dale Hawkins – still swampy – and the song that made James Burton a legend when he played with Dale Hawkins at age 16.

• "Hound Dog" (Leiber, Stoller) – Elvis Presley – done as a laid back country r&b shuffle.

• "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" (Jacobs, Razaf, Weldon) – Ray Charles and others.

• "Lonely Weekends" (Rich) – Charlie Rich – with a lot of horns the song becomes a statement rather than the Charlie Rich plea.

The album and the singles didn't chart in the US.

"That'll be the day" went to #30 in the UK

I'm a keepin this.

Sounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjLQdY4bktc&feature=PlayList&p=F9AC41655D51B379&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDCnvhwiBFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XS3hpeWU1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhRjr57G8og

A couple of other good tracks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxfljegYXk4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35YKLemYPtM

Sorry I have picked quite a few tracks for Burton but if you watch em you may get something out of them:

James Burton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cH5RGirn0k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeFZtFNELik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKBQdvLv0I0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFVNXj0c4UU

and James with Elvis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUG23fgdKI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnaicbGlw8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpEG_K9lwQM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBmAPYkPeYU&feature=related

website:
http://www.everlybrothers.com/index.html

(originally posted: 23/07/2009)