50’s Nostalgia – The Everly Brothers

My favorite song from high school

Back when my number two son was in high school, he had to write a bio of me which somehow included asking me for a favorite song. Inexplicably, I told him ‘All you have to do is dream’ by the Everly Brothers. This amazed me because we mostly listen to classical music around the house. This just demonstrates the power of music in your life because I can’t think about my high school years without hearing the music- and most of that music was rock and roll which was invented before my eyes. Maybe because they were so young (just a few years older than we were) their music related so well with teen aged thinking and hormones with just a touch of edge in their harmonies and guitar licks.

The Everly Brothers had their roots in country music

The Everly Brothers dominated popular music in the late 50’s. They grew up performing with their father and mother but their career began in Nashville where they knew Chet Atkins. This put them in with the music makers and the boys made their first recording while still teenagers. They took a song by Felice and Boudleau Bryant which had been kicking around Nashville and decided to add their harmonies and guitar and made magic with ‘Bye Bye Love’. This song went almost all the way to the top of the Billboard Chart, but was kept from number one by Pat Boone and Elvis Presley. They were asked to appear on the Grand Ole Opry in 1957. For the rest of the 50’s, the brothers were never off the charts with a series of hit including “Wake up little Suzy’, ‘All you have to do is dream’ and ‘Bird Dog’.

They faded in the 60’s

The 60’s weren’t kind to the Everly Brothers who were displaced by the British invasion and had personal problems but they persisted, separated and reunited. Recent history doesn’t change their role in making rock and roll. Nothing will ever take the Everly Brothers from center stage in the Rock scene of the 50’s. They ruled.

Here they are with their first hit – not even 20.