Latest news with #EverlyBrothers
Wall Street Journal
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Blood Harmony' Review: Hearing Double
Feuding brothers have always been part of rock's dysfunctional dynamic. Renowned sibling rivalries include the Kinks' Ray and Dave Davies and Creedence Clearwater Revival's Tom and John Fogerty. Oasis' Liam Gallagher once clocked his brother Noel with a tambourine. But the mother of all brother feuds erupted at the dawn of rock 'n' roll with the sparring siblings Don and Phil Everly. The pair of golden-voiced heartthrobs were often at each other's throats even as their heavenly harmonies exalted teen angst to the farthest reaches of AM radio. Theirs was a potent, almost mystical elixir that transformed pop music, helping trigger Beatlemania and the British Invasion in the '60s, and the West Coast country-rock revolution in the early '70s. A random 1963 blow-up epitomizes the Everlys' feisty ways. At the time they had an unprecedented million-dollar record deal. But the brothers were 'tiffing rather loudly,' their act 'near collapse,' according to the Hollywood Reporter: 'The boys have been feuding for some time, but it became a matter of public discussion when Phil tried to belt brother Don during a Warner Bros. recording session. Other people got between the boys before blood was shed.' It's another of what Phil called the pair's 25-year 'argument' and one of many brotherly scuffles cited in 'Blood Harmony,' the first in-depth biography of one of pop music's most influential duos. Barry Mazor strikes a balance between the Everlys' stormy lives and their enduring music, making a strong case for the Everly Brothers as more than pioneering rock songbirds. They were full-fledged auteurs who left their mark as songwriters, instrumentalists and creators of visionary pop records.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Lulu's voice soars but is she struggling to break free from the past?
⭐⭐⭐ There is something that Lulu – who has now racked up more than 60 years in the business called show – wants her audience in Dunfermline to know tonight. 'I'm not retiring, by the way,' she tells us near the end of her raucously received gig at the Alhambra Theatre. And why should she? Dressed in diamante and white, she looks great for her age (she's now, as she reminds us more than once, 76). And she sounds even better. That soulful, rasping, rowdy voice with which she announced herself to the world as a young teenager with the single Shout back in 1964 remains intact, its dynamic range – greater than her songs and perhaps, at times, her own inclination, always allows – still apparent. She's something of a dynamo herself. As she slinks and shimmies around the stage she encourages her audience to raise the noise. 'Come on guys, you're not dead yet.' Not all of us can move as easily as her. Accompanied by her sister Edwina on backing vocals and a band who are all mountainman beards and headwear, she is an old-school trouper determined to put on a show. And therein might lie the problem. The format for the evening is a musical journey through Lulu's life. It begins with a nostalgic shuffle through a photograph album showing the many people she has been associated with in her life. The Beatles, Bowie, the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil Everly, Shirley Bassey, Elton John, Ronan Keating, her former husband Maurice Gibb and Dudley Moore all make an appearance. (Later there will be pictures of her with Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner). Read more from Teddy Jamieson: But in many ways that gallery encapsulates the bipolarity of her career. She has always been drawn to soul and R&B (after opening with a relaxed reading of Shout she segues into a cover of Heatwave by Martha and the Vandellas and at one point she vamps a few lines from James Brown's Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine), but too often she has been drawn into the shallows of light entertainment. And so, after a bouncy take on Neil Diamond's The Boat That I Row (a top 10 hit for Lulu in 1967) she feels obliged to give us Boom Bang-A-Bang, her successful Eurovision entry for 1969 (four songs all ended up with the same votes and were declared joint winners). It's clear she's not a fan and she rattles it off as quickly as she can, but it sets the course for the evening; a constant push and pull between what she wants and what she thinks the audience wants. This is a curated show. It allows her to redraw the outlines of her back catalogue, remove the dross and play up the highlights. Even so, she feels obliged to include the big hits, including her loud but empty Bond theme tune The Man With the Golden Gun and her duet with Ronan Keating of Bob Seger's We've Got Tonight. Actually, the latter is one of the evening's highlights thanks to the interplay with her musical director Rick Krive, two great voices given space to soar. And it should be said the evening is full of fine things. Her take on Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World had a suitably Ziggy loucheness to it (as well as her amusingly accurate impersonation of the great man's south London accent). Performing Where the Poor Boys Dance and I Don't Wanna Fight – the latter a hit for Tina Turner – is a reminder that, with her brother Billy, she is more than capable of writing a good tune herself. But now and again the showbiz trouper in her slightly sabotages her best intentions; a few too many namedrops, one or two lurches into her 'Scottish' accent (although there's an element of play about the latter these days). Lulu pictured at Pinewood Studios in 1968 (Image: Newsquest) And she finishes the first half of the show with To Sir, With Love, one of the best things she's ever done and a number one hit in the United States in 1967. But this is an inflated, self-consciously epic take on the tune that doesn't totally suit it. And while it showcases the power of her voice it doesn't show its range and depth (as the recording does). Still, there's a lot to love here. Inevitably, she performs her 1993 comeback hit Independence and Relight My Fire (offering up a thank you to Take That for inviting her to sing it with them and for the LGBTQ community for supporting her through the years). And it's appropriate that she should give us a version of her mate Elton John's hit I'm Still Standing. Because, 60 years and counting into her career, she most definitely is. But you come away from this evening wondering what it might be like if she did a show for herself for once. Maybe she could perform her sadly overlooked 1970 New Routes album – recorded at Muscle Shoals with Duane Allman and Jim Dickinson – in full, or go back to the source of her love for soul and R&B and Rick Rubin it (think of what Rubin did for Johnny Cash). Retirement is the last thing she should do. But maybe another reinvention?
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Phil and Don Everly lit up the charts before the Beatles arrived. A new book restores their legacy
What is it about brothers? So competitive, so determined to outshine the other, so very male. In popular music, there are numerous examples of passionate sibling partnerships that have burned bright only to flame out, leaving recriminatory anger and the occasional lawsuit in their wake. The Everly brothers were no exception. Foundational pillars of 20th century popular music, they formed the first great harmony vocal duo to bridge country music and pop. Over a five year period from 1957 to 1962, the brothers recorded a series of singles — 'Wake Up Little Susie,' 'Bye Bye Love' and 'All I Have to Do Is Dream,' among them — that imprinted themselves into the pop-music canon, their soaring, wistful, close-interval harmonies gliding straight into our souls. You don't have to look too hard to find Phil and Don Everly's traces. The Beatles regarded them as the harmony group they longed to emulate; you can hear them sing a snatch of 'Bye Bye Love' in Peter Jackson's 'Get Back' documentary, and Paul McCartney name-checked them in his 1976 song 'Let 'Em In.' Simon & Garfunkel wanted to be the Everlys and included 'Bye Bye Love' on the 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' album. In 2013, Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones recorded 'Foreverly,' an album of Everly Brothers songs. And yet, biographies of them are scant. Barry Mazor's 'Blood Harmony' is long overdue, a rigorously researched narrative of the duo's fascinatingly zig-zaggy 50-plus-year career, as well as a loving valentine to the pair's enduring musical power. In his book, Mazor is quick to refute many of the myths that have accreted around the pair, starting with the backstory that the brothers were reared in Kentucky, a cradle of bluegrass, and that their dad, an accomplished guitarist and singer, nurtured them up from rural poverty into spotlight stardom. In fact, Mazor's book points out that the brothers, who were born two years apart, moved around a lot as kids — Iowa and Chicago, mostly — soaking in the musical folkways of those regions and absorbing it all into their musical bloodstream. Though they were apprenticed by their father to perform as adolescents, they were their own men, with a sophisticated grasp of various musical genres as teenagers. 'They were as much products of the Midwest as they were of Kentucky,' says Mazor from his Nashville home. 'The music they learned and the culture they absorbed was in Chicago, where they lived with their parents for a time, and they picked up on the R&B there. All of this eventually adds up to what we now call Americana, which is music that has a sense of place.' The Everlys brought that country-meets-the-city vibe to pop music. Another misconception that Mazor clears up in 'Blood Harmony' is the notion that the Beatles were the first musical group to write and play its own songs. In fact, Phil and Don wrote a clutch of the Everlys' greatest records, including Phil's 1960 composition 'When Will I Be Loved,' which became a mammoth hit when Linda Ronstadt covered it in 1975. It's also true that Don is rock's first great rhythm guitarist, his strident acoustic strum powering 'Wake Up Little Susie' and others. George Harrison was listening, as was Pete Townsend. The Everlys produced hits, many of them written by one or both of the husband-and-wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant: 'Bird Dog,' 'Love Hurts,' 'Poor Jenny' and others. But the Beatles' global success became a barricade that many of the first-generation rock stars couldn't breach, including the Everlys. 'Even though they were only a couple of years older than the Beatles, they were treated as old hat,' says Mazor. Complicating matters further: A lawsuit brought by their publishing company Acuff-Rose in 1961 meant that the brothers could no longer tap the Bryants to write songs for them. The same year, they enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and found, just as Elvis had discovered a few years prior, that military service did little to help sell records. By the time the lawsuit was settled in 1964, both brothers had descended into amphetamine abuse. The Everlys had to go back to move forward. Warner Bros. Records, their label since 1960, had become the greatest label for a new era of singer-songwriters taking country-rock to a more introspective place. Future label president Lenny Waronker, an Everlys fan, wanted to make an album that would place the brothers in their proper context, as pioneers who bridged musical worlds to create something entirely new. The resulting project, called 'Roots,' drew from the Everlys' musical heritage but also featured covers of songs by contemporary writers Randy Newman and Ron Elliott. Released in 1968, the same year as the Byrds' 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' and the Band's 'Music from Big Pink,' 'Roots' sold meekly, but it remains a touchstone of the Everlys' career, a key progenitor of the Americana genre. ''The 'Roots' album was one last chance to show they mattered,' says Mazor. 'And there was suddenly room for them again. It wasn't a massive seller, but it opened the door.' If anything, it was their own fraught relationship that tended to snag the Everlys' progress. Their identities were as intertwined as their harmonies, and it grated on them. Mazor points out that they were in fact vastly different in temperament, Phil's pragmatic careerism running counter to Don's more free-spirited approach. This push and pull created tensions that weighed heavily on their friendship and their musical output. 'Phil was more conservative in some ways. He was content to play the supper club circuit well into '70s, while Don wanted to explore and was less willing to sell out, as it were,' says Mazor. 'And this created a wedge between them.' Perhaps inevitably, from 1973 to roughly 1983, they branched out as solo artists, making records that left little imprint on the public consciousness. They had families and eventually both moved from their L.A. home base to different cities. But there was time for one final triumph. Having briefly set their differences aside, the brothers played a reunion show at London's Royal Albert Hall in September 1983, which led to a collaboration on an album with British guitarist Dave Edmunds producing. Edmunds, in turn, asked Paul McCartney whether he would be willing to write something for the 'EB 84' album, and the result was 'On the Wings of a Nightingale,' their last U.S. hit, albeit a modest one. 'The harmony singing that the Everlys pioneered is still with us,' says Mazor. 'If you look back, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, all of these brother acts all loved the Everlys. But there's also a contemporary act called Larkin Poe, who called one of their albums 'Blood Harmony.' They set an example for how two singers can maximize their voices to create something larger than themselves. This kind of harmony still lingers.'
Pink Villa
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Kate Beckinsale Reveals Mom Judy Loe Passed Away in Her Arms After Cancer Battle: 'I Am Paralyzed'
Trigger Warning: This article contains references to an individual's death. Kate Beckinsale has confirmed the death of her mother, Judy Loe, at age 78 after a long battle with cancer. The actress shared an emotional post on Instagram revealing that her mother passed away in her arms on the night of July 15. 'I don't want to post this,' Beckinsale wrote. 'I am only posting this because I have had to register my mother's death certificate and it will soon become public record.' In her post, the Underworld star included a series of photos of Judy from different stages of her life, including her early acting career. 'She died the night of July 15th in my arms after immeasurable suffering,' she wrote. 'I have not picked all the best photos, nor the best videos, because I cannot bear to go through my camera roll yet.' Kate Beckinsale reflects on the heartbreaking loss Kate Beckinsale called her mother 'the compass of my life, the love of my life, my dearest friend,' and said that losing her has left her unable to function. 'I am paralyzed,' she said in the post. 'The vastness and huge heart of this tiny woman has touched so many people who love her dearly.' She also apologized to friends who might have learned about Judy's death through the media. 'I deeply apologize to any of her friends who are finding out this way or through the press, but I cannot go through her phone,' she wrote. Here's what Judy Loe meant to Kate and her family Judy Loe was a respected actress known for her work in Edward the Seventh, General Hospital, and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. She revealed her stage four cancer diagnosis in July 2024, not long after the passing of her husband, Roy Battersby. Beckinsale had been by her mother's side in her final days. Just a week before her death, she shared a video from her hospital room singing Bye Bye Love by the Everly Brothers. 'When my mom was 14, she was in a harmony group with her best friends Mary, Sylvia, (known as Fuzzy), and Chris,' she wrote. 'Mary unfortunately is no longer with us but up until very recently…they would get together and still absolutely kill it.' Beckinsale lost her father, actor Richard Beckinsale, when she was just five years old. He passed away from a heart attack at the age of 31. In a 2021 interview with Howard Stern, Kate described the experience as extremely intense. She ended her tribute to her mother with a heartfelt message, expressing deep sorrow and repeatedly saying she was sorry.
NZ Herald
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Lost Boss: Unearthing Bruce Springsteen's hidden gems
The new collection of dozens of unreleased Bruce Springsteen songs from across his career explained in five tracks. In 1998, Bruce Springsteen released Tracks, a box set of 66 songs, many of them previously unreleased, others interesting demos or rare B-sides. Now comes Tracks II: The Lost Albums, an even more expansive collection of 83 songs (74 previously unheard) from albums he completed between 1983 and 2018, but never released. Tracks II offers something like an alternative history, so we highlight five songs from the different periods collected chronologically on the seven CD/seven album box set, also available digitally. Dream from the LA Garage Sessions '83 The 18 demos recorded between Nebraska and Born in the USA find Springsteen exploring Buddy Holly/Everly Brothers rockabilly (Little Girl Like You, Seven Tears), country (Jim Deer, County Fair) and different versions of the autobiographically reflective My Hometown and the Viet-vet narrative Shut Out the Light. This eerie piece has a man confronted by an unstated secret from his past that eats away at him. He flees his wife and family, haunted by something unexplained and perhaps inexplicable. There are two versions, this is the first. I Don't Know You from the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions album, 1993-94 Writing Streets of Philadelphia , the title song for the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia, Springsteen experimented with synthesisers and loops to create the spectral sadness of that extraordinarily moving song, and then others. However, the album was sidelined and only one song slipped out, Secret Garden. A pity because it contained excellent songs, notably this, where a man sees his partner with new clothes, a different hairstyle and listening to different music. He suspects … Springsteen weighs the vocal with increasing defeat. The newly separated Elvis who sang You Were Always On My Mind would have understood this. Man from Somewhere North of Nashville, 1995 Those wanting Springsteen as a country singer rocking up the bar or getting melancholy with pedal steel have a whole album of that in Somewhere North of Nashville, recorded at the same time as the downbeat Ghost of Tom Joad. Detail Man and Stand On It are among the rockers; Tiger Rose, You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone and Under a Big Sky are the weepers. Repo Man is Chuck Berry taken to the honky-tonk, with sharp pedal steel and a bar-room-rattling piano part. Not a classic but everyone's having a good time. You will, too. Juarez from the album Inyo, 1995-1997 The songs on the excellent, unreleased Inyo album have Springsteen south of the border in a reflective, Hispanic frame of mind (Our Lady of Monroe, El Jardinero, One False Move). He goes a bit Roy Orbison on The Lost Charro. Ciudad Juarez is an acoustic ballad with lonely trumpet about a father travelling to Juarez and losing his daughter to the drug trade. Anyone who got immersed in the Netflix series Narcos Mexico will be on familiar if uncomfortable territory. of Us from the album Twilight Hours, recordings between 2010 and 2018 Springsteen's 2019 orchestrated Western Stars album was an ambitious marriage of songwriting with widescreen Western soundtracks. The songs on Twilight Hours come from the same period and sensibility, where Burt Bacharach-like arrangements (Sunday Love, Follow the Sun), Orbison's emotional depth (the immediately affecting September Kisses) and The Boss's storytelling find common ground on ballads. Two of Us (not the only title on Tracks II previously claimed) pulls together those threads on a song that sounds instantly familiar and soars from 'I walk with my head down', when love and the strings give him uplift.
