Songs Our Daddy Taught Us was the Everly Brothers’ second album, released by Cadence Records late in 1958 as CLP-3016. It came out while Don and Phil Everly were at the height of their success as a rock and roll act, with hits such as “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie” behind them. For this record they sang twelve older songs they had learned as boys from their father, Ike Everly.
The album was made in two sessions at RCA Victor’s studio at 1611 Hawkins Street in Nashville in August 1958, around the 13th and on the 16th, with Archie Bleyer, who ran Cadence, producing. A month earlier, “Bird Dog” and “Devoted to You” had been cut in the same room with Chet Atkins, Ray Edenton, Jerry Byrd and Buddy Harman. This time the brothers’ two guitars were joined only by Lightnin’ Chance on bass. The first session produced “Roving Gambler,” “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet,” “Rockin’ Alone in My Old Rockin’ Chair” and “Put My Little Shoes Away.” The second produced the other eight, among them “Down in the Willow Garden,” “Barbara Allen,” “Lightning Express,” “Kentucky,” Gene Autry’s “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine” and “I’m Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail,” which the label credits to Karl and Harty. Ike Everly is credited with the arrangements of “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet,” “Barbara Allen” and “Put My Little Shoes Away.”
In December 1958 Cadence split the album across three EPs, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us parts 1 to 3. The LP entered Cash Box’s best-selling pop albums chart in January 1959 and peaked at number 17. Cadence reissued it in 1962 as Folk Songs by the Everly Brothers, and the same year put out “I’m Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail” backed with “Lightning Express” as a single. In 2013 Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones recorded the whole album again as Foreverly.
Tracklist
- 1 Roving Gambler alt version 3:10
- 2 Down in the Willow Garden alt version 3:05
- 3 Long Time Gone 2:27
- 4 Lightning Express 4:53
- 5 That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine 3:10
- 6 Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet 2:41
- 7 Barbara Allen 4:42
- 8 Oh, So Many Years 2:37
- 9 I’m Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail alt version 3:37
- 10 Rocking Alone (In an Old Rockin' Chair) 3:01
- 11 Kentucky 3:11
- 12 Put My Little Shoes Away 3:24
