The Everly Brothers’ addiction drove both their success and mutual hatred for each other.
Don Everly, 74, dead from COPD brought on by a lifetime of smoking. He and his brother, Phil Everly, performed as The Everly Brothers while addicted to speed, alcohol and other drugs. When a very drunk Don flubbed the lyrics to “Cathy’s Clown” at a concert in 1973, they split up and refused to talk to each other. A decade later they again began to perform together, despite a mutual hatred that was so vitriolic their contracts required separate dressing rooms and stage entrances.
While drunk and drugged, their extraordinary harmonies strongly influenced the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The Bee Gees and the Hollies. The Beatles once referred to themselves as “the English Everly Brothers;” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where they were one of the first ten artists inducted, Neil Young observed that every musical group he belonged to had tried and failed to copy the Everly Brothers’ harmonies. As part of the birth of rock and roll, they hold the record for the most Top-100 singles by any duo (35). Theirs was, however, a classic alcoholic tale of rocketing up and quickly flaming out; their successes of the late ‘50s and very early ‘60s were followed by decades of mediocrity.