The Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, grew up in a musical family, singing on the radio in Iowa with their parents as the Everly Family when they were still kids. By their high-school years in Knoxville they were on radio and TV on their own, Chet Atkins took an interest, and in 1956 they started writing and recording their own songs. "Bye Bye Love" was their first hit, going to number one in the spring of 1957, and "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream" and "Problems" followed in 1958.

What they had was a sound: two voices locked so close together they seemed to come out of one throat, over steel-string acoustic guitars strummed hard enough to rock. They mixed rock and roll, country and pop, and in doing it they helped invent country rock. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees and Simon & Garfunkel all took notes. They moved to Warner Bros. Records in 1960 and cut "Cathy's Clown", their biggest-selling single.

Enlisting in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1961 slowed them down, and shifting tastes and a long feud with Wesley Rose of Acuff-Rose Music cooled things off in America, though Britain and Canada kept buying the singles. They split in 1973 and reunited in 1983. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took them in with its first class in 1986, and the Grammys gave them a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Phil died in 2014, and Don in 2021.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.