The Everly Brothers Albums (24)
'Music Legend: The Everly Brothers in Concert'
Release Date 3/23/2004
Tracks 13
Label Brentwood
See Album Tracklist and Review
'In Concert: The Reunion'
Release Date 1/1/1996
Tracks 12
Label Excelsior
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
After their televised reunion concert, the Everlys made a commercial and artistic comeback with EB 84. With Dave Edmunds producing, Phil and Don brought their sound into the '80s while maintaining their trademark harmonies. Lifted by Paul McCartney's "Wings of a Nightingale" and Jeff Lynne's ethereal "The Story of Me," this record has more to offer than simply nostalgia. ~ J.P. Ollio, All Music Guide
'The New Album: Previously Unreleased Songs from the Early Sixties'
Release Date 1/1/1977
Tracks 14
Label Warner Bros.
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The Everly Brothers completed their contract with Warner Bros. Records in 1970, and they broke up in 1973. It is an interesting question, therefore, how the British division of Warner Bros. could have released an Everly Brothers LP pointedly called The New Album in 1977 (an album belatedly issued in the U.S. by the mail-order company Collectors' Choice Music 28 years later in 2005). The answer, of course, is that the deceptively titled collection consists of tracks recorded by the Everlys for Warner Bros. in the '60s, all of them, with the exception of the 1968 B-side single "Empty Boxes," are previously unreleased. "Nancy's Minuet" was also a B-side, but the version here is an alternate take, and Don Everly re-recorded "Omaha" for his 1970 solo album Don Everly. Otherwise, these are songs that never got out of the recording studio. They provide a short history in the Everlys' work of the '60s, with the earlier tracks, such as the opening number, "Silent Treatment" and the closing one, "Why Not," both recorded in 1960, harking back to their classic '50s sound; mid-'60s efforts like "Nothing Matters But You" and "I'll See Your Light" chasing the post-British Invasion trend; and 1968 recordings "Omaha" and "Empty Boxes" showing the reinvented acoustic style they would pursue on the Roots LP released at the end of that year. Songwriters include the Brill Building teams Gerry Goffin/Carole King and Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, as well as Roger Miller, John D. Loudermilk, and the Everlys themselves, so the quality of the songs holds up, and it's possible to imagine several of these tracks being hits in an alternate universe in which the Everly Brothers continued to be big recording stars after the early '60s. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Pass the Chicken & Listen'
Release Date 1/1/1972
Tracks 12
Label RCA Victor
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The Everly Brothers had been making records for more than 15 years when they cut Pass the Chicken & Listen in 1973, which found Don and Phil reaching an impasse. While the Everlys had cut some fine country rock albums in the late '60s and early '70s, the contemporary rock audience had passed them by, and with Chet Atkins in the producer's chair Pass the Chicken & Listen often feels like an effort to reintroduce the Everlys as a country act, albeit one with a younger feel and a more pop oriented approach than most of the folks working in Nashville at the time. The brothers' harmonies were still in superb shape, and they could conjure a high lonesome sound that was made to order for songs like Mickey Newbury's "Sweet Memories" and Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives," and they picked some adventurous material by Nashville standards, covering songs from Guy Clark ("A Nickel for the Fiddler"), John Prine ("Paradise"), and Kris Kristofferson "Somebody Nobody Knows"). While Atkins' production sometimes feels just a bit too slick for the material, the arrangements strive not to intrude on the melodies, and most of the time Pass the Chicken & Listen strikes a graceful balance between countrypolitain orthodoxy and the most adventurous flavors of contemporary pop/rock. However, the biggest stumbling block of this album is the Everly Brothers themselves: they never sound less than professional, but their hearts don't always appear to be in their work, particularly on the more twangy numbers, and it's significant that the duo broke up under acrimonious circumstances a few months after this album arrived in stores. It proved to be the Everly Brothers' last recording together for ten years. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
'Everly Brothers Show'
Release Date 1/1/1970
Tracks 18
Label Warner Bros.
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
On Wednesday, July 8, 1970, at 9 p.m. EDT, the ABC television network broadcast the first of 11 weekly episodes of The Everly Brothers Show, a one-hour musical variety program that was the summer replacement for The Johnny Cash Show. The same month, Warner Bros. Records released a double LP (later reissued as a single CD) also called The Everly Brothers Show. But the album was not a soundtrack to the TV series; it was a live recording that had been made five months earlier at the Grand Hotel in Anaheim, CA, at which the duo of Don and Phil Everly, backed by an electric guitar/bass/drums trio, played a mixture of their old hits, some newer songs, and various cover material. There was a sort of autobiographical structure to the show, at least at first, as Don Everly began with a spoken introduction that harked back to the brothers' youth, leading into a series of songs loosely related to that youth -- "Mama Tried," "Kentucky," and "Bowling Green" -- followed by a batch of their hits. After a cover of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene," there was a lengthy medley of rock & roll songs, then a string of ballads. But, as Don Everly's sardonic remarks suggested, it was all taken in a simultaneously off-hand and dismissive manner. The brothers' fast numbers "('Til) I Kissed You," "Wake Up Little Susie," "Cathy's Clown," and "Bird Dog," were taken at breakneck tempos, as if to get them out of the way, while the ballads that came toward the end, "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Walk Right Back," "I Wonder If I Care as Much," and "Let It Be Me," were slowed down. The strangest section was the rock & roll medley, eighteen-and-a-half minutes of seemingly random snatches of songs including Berry's "Rock and Roll Music," the Beatles' "The End," "Aquarius" from Hair, "If I Were a Carpenter," the Everlys' own "The Price of Love," "The Thrill Is Gone," and "The Games People Play," with riffs from other songs thrown in, and including drum and bass solos (a standard indulgence of the time, admittedly). The duo displayed a bizarre Beatles obsession that included appending the coda from "Hey Jude" to "Susie Q" and even turning "Let It Be Me" into "Give Peace a Chance" at the end. Their harmonies were as attractive as ever, but this was not a live album that showed off their stage talents to advantage. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Considered one of the finest early country-rock albums, this showed the Everlys, unlike virtually every other top rock & roll act of the '50s, keeping abreast of contemporary rock and pop trends. In the manner of their 1958 LP Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, the concept was to cover songs by performers and composers who had been influential on the duo (including Jimmie Rodgers and Merle Haggard), traditional standards, and a couple of numbers by Ron Elliott of the Beau Brummels. Although this laid-back, tasteful, acoustic-oriented recording isn't as outstanding as their classic early hits, the vocals are superb, conveying qualities of innocence tempered by experience. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
