Bye Bye Love By The everly Brothers

Bye Bye Love

1957

The Everly Brothers

Three days into 2014 a member of one of the best loved brother acts in popular music history passed away, and I fully intended to post several of their songs as a tribute...but as happens to all of us more times than any of us would like to think about, life intervened and I had other things to take care of, a house to get moved into, health concerns to take care of, and two other blogs to get caught up with, so it didn't happen when it was supposed to happen.

Time continued to pass, and the end of May came around, and I thought to myself 'It's been nearly six months...should I even worry bout it now?'

The answer, of course, is yes, I should. We're talking about half of a legend here, the younger member of a much loved duo whose sound inspired the biggest pop band ever and whose songs are still around on Oldies Stations to this day. Their tight, legitimately awesome harmonies are still a standard that's aspired to, and their sound pretty much spearheaded the switch-over from do-wop to a more Rock oriented sound.

 The duo, of course, is 'The Everly Brothers', and the younger of the two, Phil Everly, is the brother who made the world a bit poorer when he joined Rock and Roll Heaven's 'Hell of a Band' on January 3^rd.

While The Everly Brothers recorded Top 40 hits right on through the Sixties, all of their biggest and best remembered hits were recorded during a three year span from 1957-1960. You've got to remember something about the Fifties, both the era and the music. World War II had just been won, America was wealthy and optimistic, and their was a general air of well-being and optimism in the air. The music reflected this attitude, especially after 'Rock' hit the scene...of course what they thought of as 'Rock and Roll' in the mid to late late Fifties is a far cry from what we considered Rock in the Seventies. Pop Music in the fifties tended to be light weight and fun. This would be the direction that the Everly Brothers music eventually took...though they actually started out as a Country act, and in fact most of their early hits charted on both the pop and Country Charts.

Don and Phil Everly came by their talent naturally...both parents were entertainers, and their dad could make a guitar absolutely talk to ya, so it was no real surprise when the kids decide to carry on in the music business. OF course what a lot of people who are only casually acquainted with their music don't know is...they started out as a Country act. One of the instruments they are known for is the steel string acoustic guitar, an instrument that all but screamed 'Country Music', especially back in the Fifties and Sixties, and definitely back in 1956 when RCA-Nashville studio manager and family friend Chet Adkins took note of their talent and helped broker a deal for them, at Columbia Records. They recorded a single under the Columbia label...and it flopped spectacularly (The name of the tune was 'Keep a Lovin' Me', if ya want to look for it. I mean, have any of you ever heard it? Thought not.)

So Columbia dropped 'em, a guy named Wesley Rose noticed their Songwriting talents and musical ability, signed 'em as songwriters, got them a record deal with Cadence Records, and a little tune named Bye Bye Love was the result.

AHHH! You say...Don Everly wrote 'em a hit!....well....no. The tune was actually penned by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who originally wrote it for none other than The King himself, Elvis Presley, who rejected it. After Elvis turned it down, they sent it to no fewer than thirty artists, all of whom also rejected it. Soundly. As in 'The heck is that???' soundly.

So Chet Atkins took a look at it, got with Cadence Records, and asked them to let Don and Phil Everly take a shot at it. So they took a look at it, tried recording it, and just couldn't come up with an intro that they...or anyone...liked. Ya know that classic intro? It wasn't original to Bye Bye Love.

They were all getting frustrated when Don Everly, just for the heck of it, played the intro to another song he was writing, and suddenly...it clicked! They did a rough cut with the new intro, tweaked it a bit, made it into a Rockabilly tune with their signature steel guitar and that awesome, semi-twangy close harmony that they came to be known and loved for, and, on March 9, 1957, they sent it out into the world. The World approved. Big Time.

It climbed both the Country and Pop charts simultaneously, hitting the coveted '1' spot on the Country charts, and scoring the #2 spot on the Billboard Pop charts, and a legend was born.

As for their little tune about a dude bemoaning the loss of his girl to another guy, it's still around, fifty-seven years after it was released. You can still hear it, fairly regularly, on Oldies stations throughout the land. (That'd be 107.3 here in the Richmond-TriCities area.) OF course, The Everly Brothers weren't finished. By any means.

So Enjoy! 'Bye Bye Love', by The Everly Brothers!

And as a bonus...this one's kinda special, IMHO. Eighteen year old Phil Everly and twenty year old Don Everly being introduced to the National Television audience by Julius LeRosa on June 22^nd, 1957, When Don stood up and hit that opening chord, little did he know he was kicking off a string of beloved classics.