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The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock. The duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio in Iowa singing with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s, and in Knoxville, Tennessee, while the brothers were in high school. They gained the attention of Chet Atkins, who began to promote them for national attention. They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit. Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and a growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the pair's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together and continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later. The group was highly influential on the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 1986, and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Don was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019, earning the organization's first Iconic Riff Award for his distinctive rhythm guitar intro to the Everlys' massive 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie". History Family and education Don was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, on February 1, 1937, and Phil in Chicago, Illinois, on January 19, 1939. Their parents were Isaac Milford "Ike" Everly Jr. (1908–1975), a guitar player, and Margaret Embry Everly (1919–2021). Actor James Best (born Jewel Guy), also from Muhlenberg County, was a first cousin, the son of Ike's sister. Margaret was 15 when she married Ike, who was 26. Ike worked in coal mines from age 14, but his father encouraged him to pursue his love of music and Ike and Margaret began singing together. The Everly brothers spent most of their childhood in Shenandoah, Iowa. They attended Longfellow Elementary School in Waterloo, Iowa, for a year but then moved to Shenandoah in 1944, where they remained through early high school. Ike Everly had a show on KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah in the mid-1940s, first with his wife and then with their sons. The brothers sang on the radio as "Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil". The family sang as the Everly Family. The family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1953, where the brothers attended West High School (Knoxville, Tennessee). In 1955, the family moved to Madison, Tennessee, while the brothers moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Don had graduated from high school in 1955, and Phil attended Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville, from which he graduated in 1957. Both could now focus on recording. 1950s While in Knoxville the brothers found work performing on Cas Walker’s Farm and Home Hour, a regional radio and TV variety program, before the brothers caught the attention of family friend Chet Atkins, manager of the RCA Victor studios in Nashville. Shortly thereafter their mother moved the family to Nashville. Despite affiliation with RCA Victor, Atkins somehow arranged for the Everly Brothers to record for Columbia Records in early 1956. Their "Keep a-Lovin' Me", which Don wrote and composed, flopped, and they were dropped from the Columbia label. Atkins introduced the Everly Brothers to Wesley Rose, of Acuff-Rose music publishers. Rose told them he would secure them a recording deal if they signed to Acuff-Rose as songwriters. They signed in late 1956, and in 1957 Rose introduced them to Archie Bleyer, who was looking for artists for his Cadence Records. The Everlys signed and made a recording in February 1957. "Bye Bye Love" had been rejected by 30 other acts. Their record reached No. 2 on the pop charts, behind Elvis Presley's "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear", and No. 1 on the country and No. 5 on the R&B charts. The song, by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, became the Everly Brothers' first million-seller. Working with the Bryants, they had hits in the United States and the United Kingdom, the biggest being "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", "Bird Dog", and "Problems". The Everlys, though they were largely interpretive artists, also succeeded as songwriters, especially with Don's "(Till) I Kissed You", which hit No. 4 on the US pop charts. The brothers toured with Buddy Holly in 1957 and 1958. According to Holly's biographer Philip Norman, they were responsible for persuading Holly and the Crickets to change their outfits from Levi's and T-shirts to the Everlys' Ivy League suits. Don said Holly wrote and composed "Wishing" for them. "We were all from the South", Phil observed of their commonalities. "We'd started in country music." Although some sources say Phil Everly was one of Holly's pallbearers in February 1959, Phil said in 1986 that he attended the funeral and sat with Holly's family, but was not a pallbearer. Don did not attend, saying, "I couldn't go to the funeral. I couldn't go anywhere. I just took to my bed." 1960s–1973 After three years on Cadence, the Everlys signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1960, where they recorded for 10 years. Their first Warner Bros. hit, 1960's "Cathy's Clown", which they wrote and composed themselves, sold eight million copies and became the duo's biggest-selling record. "Cathy's Clown" was number WB1, the first selection Warner Bros. Records ever released in the United Kingdom. We're not Grand Ole Opry ... we're obviously not Perry Como ... we're just pop music. But, you coul.... Discover the Everly Stone popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Everly Stone books.