To Phil Everly

Phil Everly is dead. He died at 74 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as a result of long time smoking.    Many people of today may not know Phil and his brother Don, known as the Everly Brothers, but for those who listened to music in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, they were household names. Even up to the 80s their music resonated. They made the 1958 song Take A Message To Mary popular. Another one is All I Have To Do Is Dream.    The duo’s genre was in the rock ‘n’ roll, and it was played like it was never played before. Phil and Don influenced the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Hollies.   “Perhaps even more powerfully than Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers melded country with the emerging sound of 50s rock & roll,” according to Rolling Stone magazine. They were known for their distinctive harmonies.     Their first breakthrough hit and first million-seller Bye Bye Love in 1957 rose to No 2 on the U.S. charts. One of my best, Wake Up Little Susie, also released in 1957, was their first No 1 hit. Along with Mozart, Jim Reeves, and Don Williams, the duo’s songs were on my cart as songs I listened to when reading.    The Everly Brothers were together for five decades. They broke up on stage in 1973, but 10 years later they were back together at a reunion concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.    In 1986 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Don Everly was born in 1937 to Ike and Margaret Everly, both folk and country music singers. Phil Everly was born to the couple on January 19, 1939.    Don Everly was quoted in a 1986 Associated Press interview as saying that they were successful because “we never followed trends. We did what we liked and followed our instincts. Rock ‘n’ roll did survive, and we were right about that. Country did survive, and we were right about that. You can mix the two but people said we couldn’t.”   Other hit songs were So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad) (1960), When Will I Be Loved (written by Phil) and Like Strangers.   “The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top 100 singles, 26 in the top 40. They hold the record for the most Top 100 singles by any duo, and trail only Hall & Oates for the most Top 40 singles by a duo.”   Good music is everly enchanting (pun intended) and not restrained by time, season or age, it is forever.  That was what the duo gave the world. That is where we take solace. Dr Cosmas Odoemena