Phil Everly
Musician · 1939–2014 · Chicago, Illinois
Best known for
Harmony Vocals
Guitar
Songwriter
Phil Everly was the younger half of the Everly Brothers, whose glassy, close-interval sibling harmony bridged Appalachian country duet singing and the emerging sound of rock & roll. Singing the high tenor above Don’s lead, Phil helped shape a blend that the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Hollies, Simon & Garfunkel, and generations of country and folk harmony singers openly studied. As a duo the brothers were among the first performers ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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- Born January 19, 1939, in Chicago to Isaac Milford “Ike” Everly Jr., a respected Kentucky thumb-style guitarist, and Margaret Embry Everly. Phil grew up inside a working musical family whose roots ran back to the coal country of western Kentucky.
- As small children Phil and Don performed on the family’s live radio program, most notably over KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, where they were introduced as “Little Donnie” and “Baby Boy Phil” — a hard schooling in tight two-part harmony under their father’s ear.
- The family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1953 and then to Nashville in 1955, drawing the teenage brothers into the orbit of the professional country-music trade and the songwriting community that would supply their early hits.
- Signed to Cadence Records in 1957, the Everly Brothers broke through that year with “Bye Bye Love” (No. 2 pop, No. 1 country) and the chart-topping “Wake Up Little Susie,” both written by the husband-and-wife team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.
- The Cadence run continued with a string of standards: “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and “Bird Dog” (both 1958), “Devoted to You,” and “(’Til) I Kissed You” (1959), records defined as much by the brothers’ ringing acoustic guitars as by their voices.
- Phil was a songwriter in his own right, not only a harmony voice: he wrote “When Will I Be Loved” (a 1960 Top 10 hit for the duo, later a signature record for Linda Ronstadt in 1975) and “Gee, But It’s Lonely.”
- In 1960 the brothers signed a landmark contract with Warner Bros. Records and immediately scored with “Cathy’s Clown,” a transatlantic No. 1 and their biggest-selling single; the Warner years also yielded “Walk Right Back,” “Crying in the Rain” (1962), and the UK smash “The Price of Love” (1965).
- At the height of their fame the brothers enlisted together in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, briefly interrupting their touring and recording schedule during the early 1960s.
- Years of strain between the siblings ended in a public rupture on July 14, 1973, at Knott’s Berry Farm in California, where Phil walked off the stage mid-show; the two would not perform together again for a decade.
- Through the solo years Phil recorded steadily, issuing albums including Star Spangled Springer (1973, RCA), Mystic Line (1975), and Living Alone (1979), and closing the period with Phil Everly (1983, Capitol).
- His most conspicuous solo chart success came in 1983 with “She Means Nothing to Me,” a duet with Cliff Richard that reached the UK Top 10; he also contributed to film soundtracks during this stretch.
- The brothers reconciled with a celebrated reunion concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall on September 23, 1983, followed by the Dave Edmunds–produced comeback album EB 84, whose single “On the Wings of a Nightingale” was written for them by Paul McCartney.
- The Everly Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 as one of its first classes of honorees, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year.
- Further honors followed: a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001, recognizing the pair’s foundational place in both rock and country lineage.
- Phil largely stepped away from performing after 2007. He died January 3, 2014, in Burbank, California, at age 74, of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; his brother Don survived him until 2021.
- His legacy endures wherever two voices lock a third-and-sixth harmony over strummed guitars — a template of American duet singing that flows directly into bluegrass brother acts, country harmony, and folk-rock alike.
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Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain BoysPlayed on recording with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys
