Mom!
In tonight’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In, Mr. Moderator will spend time with a collection of songs by The Everly Brothers, from their post-peak years of 1965 through 1972. It is not a well-known period in their career, but it did yield a few minor hits and songs that were otherwise brought to the public through cover versions, including Mr. Mod’s favorite Bryan Ferry solo cover, “The Price of Love.”
“I first became interested in this period of the brothers’ career,” said Mr. Moderator in a pre-show interview, “in the early ’80s, when I bought a double-album collection of their greatest hits on the Arista label, with some pink-themed cover. As I got into the post-‘Cathy’s Clown’ material on side 3 I became fascinated by efforts to update their sound. They still made for a pretty strong, second-rate mid-’60s band, although I don’t think these strengths were reflected in their record sales.”
“As a student of long-running failure and dashed dreams,” Mr. Mod continued, “I’ve continued to dig out tracks from this point in the Everly Brothers’ career. I’m rarely let down by the feelings of empathy that sweep over me.”
“I’m sorry,” he concluded our chat, “I’ve got a show to do.”
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-11.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 11][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download each week’s podcast.]
A video taste of the wilderness years most of us missed follows the jump!
That combination of two unlikely songs at the end there was really great, Mr. Mod. The Everlys could teach McCartney a thing or two about transitioning into that second song.
Do you know “Man with Money”? One of their mid-to-late-’60s songs. I love it!
I was thinking the same thing re: McCartney, and yes, I played the Who’s version of “Man With Money” a couple of weeks ago. That is a great song. They still had more in the tank than history gives them credit for having. I mean, you never hear stuff from this period on any radio station, but you can still hear the Fuckinghams’ “Kind of a Drag” on oldies radio. What gives?
Good LORD. That EB vuh-deo is awful!
One of those “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” moments in the entertainment industry, no? Speaking of which, I just saw that Susannah York died.
I listened to this last night, and I thought I’d submitted a comment then. I’ll try to reconstruct those fresh thoughts.
I thought this was great stuff. I thought I had a good selection of their post-Cadence material, because I have the 2-CD set of Warner Bros. material called Walk Right Back, but most of what you played isn’t on there. Bowling Green is. Is that a great song or what? Jesse Winchester did a fine version of it on his Nothing But a Breeze album.
I’m tempted to say I like Bryan Ferry’s version of Price of Love better than the brothers’, but that may be because adding mariachi trumpet improves any track.
I used to have that comeback album produced by Dave Edmunds (EB84), but it was a little disappointing. It was unfortunately after Edmund had acquired some bad habits by working with Jeff Lynne, and I don’t remember the songs being that great. For some reason I bought this album on cassette though, and some of my bad memories of the album’s dullness may be due to dull cassette sound.
Yeah, as I went through eMusic, which has this run of forgotten albums, I was surprised at how much stuff wasn’t included on sides 3 and 4 of my old, double-album collection. I’m going to go back next month and download more. There are even some decent tracks from their last album before splitting, from 1973, a total country-rock affair that’s a little stiff but may appeal to the likes of Hank Fan.
I’ll have to check out the Winchester version of “Bowling Green.” I like the two albums I own by that guy. I’ve got a version by Neko Case. She even turns down the sea of reverb that’s usually stepping all over her recordings.
Good point about Edmunds’ production work being tainted by his association with Lynne. There may be Rock Crimes outstanding for Lynne’s production techniques at that time.
I’m glad you dug this stuff. I heartily encourage anyone digging through used bins to find German True Stereo outtakes of The Bee Gees to give this stuff a try instead.
Roots is my go-to EB record.