The Everly Brothers:
Harmonies from Heaven
Director:
George Scott
Year: 2016
Rating: 7.0
This is a very nice one hour look back at the Everly Brothers with lots of
clips of them playing and a number of rather ancient looking rock stars who
talk about how influential the Everly Brothers were on their music. These
being Keith Richards, Graham Nash, Art Garfunkel, Dave Edmunds, Albert Lee
along with a few music producer folks. The documentary basically focuses
on the good years when they had hit after hit from 1957 with their first
big hit Bye Bye Love to their last one in 1962, When Will I Be Loved. In
1963 they hit a confluence of events that had a huge negative impact on their
careers - they went into the Marines, they ran into legal issues so that
they could no longer record the songs of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who
had written many of their hits, and could not even record their own songs!
But on top of that came the British Invasion and the music of the Everly
Brothers no longer felt contemporary. The film only spends a few moments
relating the sad story of how these two brothers who sang so beautifully
together came to hate one another and went years without even talking. Phil
passed away in 2010.
Like most folks I imagine I was quite familiar with their big hits but had
never gone beyond that till I heard Norah Jones and Billy Joe Armstrong record
Foreverly which is a recreation of the Everly album Songs Our Daddy Taught
us from 1958. The album had no hits but was done as a farewell to their record
label Cadence as they were switching to Warners. Both versions are fabulous.
I love this album so full of fate and death and heartbreak. Their father
had been a very good musician - a great guitar player - who never made it
big but he taught his sons how to sing harmony.
