Phil Everly Dead at 74

Don’t mess with Phil!

Phil Everly, the thinner, straight-haired, more severe-looking member of the Everly Brothers, has died at 74 of complications from COPD. I love the Everly Brothers the way I often don’t allow myself to love a group. Usually, for instance, once I love more than 5 songs by any artist I’m first introduced to through the radio and a double-album greatest hits collection (as was the case with the Everly Brothers), I obsessively read up on their history, buy a bunch of the albums, watch a documentary… This was never the case with the Everly Brothers. I simply loved hearing their music. Maybe the supposed bad blood between the brothers made me shy away from reading too deeply on them. I didn’t want to spoil the harmony in my head. Maybe all the references to country music I was likely to find seemed daunting. Maybe Phil, who may have been a saint of a guy for all I knew, simply scared me. He always looked like he’d bite John Fogerty’s head off if given the chance. Hell, I’ve never even seen that reunion concert video from the 1980s that Dave Edmunds, I believe, helped organize. (Maybe coincidentally, Edmunds is another artist I like a lot whose personal journey holds no interest for me.)

Anyhow, I think the Everly Brothers were fantastic. A few years ago I filled in the gaps in my greatest hits collection, with some tracks from albums they put out during their forgotten years. I did a Saturday Night Shut-In on this subject, almost 3 years ago to this date. You can revisit that episode here.