Harking back to younger days ...

It snowed AGAIN today. But enough about the weather. I spent the day with about 20 other people in Putney, Vermont, a little more than 2 hours south of Brookfield. We had a terrific day.

Doing what, you might ask? We spent the day learning - or relearning - and singing songs recorded by the Everly Brothers.

Don and Phil Everly came out of a Kentucky radio music family. You can read details on Wikipedia. They really captured the youthful rock ‘n roll music audience in the late 1950s, when I was (ahem) entering my teenage years.

I’m not sure how many of you know what a sea change Elvis Presley’s music was. It was not the bland plain vanilla we were used to, it was in your face, it had a very big beat. His first big hit was “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956 and Elvis had a terrific voice. But to me a lot of his music was mostly loud. Because Elvis had come out of the south, that opened the door for other country-influenced singers like the Everly Brothers. Their first hit was “Bye Bye Love” in 1957.

I loved Everly Brothers music from the start. Their harmonies were great because you could sing them, and singing along just wasn’t realistic with Elvis’s music. And you could dance to all of it. Of course, you could dance to Chuck Berry, too, but I still loved Don and Phil. And they were so good-looking. (Their pictures are all over the net.) Lots of girls loved Don and Phil …

The Everly Brothers had a long, long string of hits, each as good as or better than the previous. They were on Ed Sullivan and other TV shows, just like Elvis was. They were wonderful.

So today we had this super-nostalgic workshop led by singer Val Mindel, who lives in Vermont and teaches harmony of one sort or another all over the country, and Kate Breslin, a well-known folk singer who sang with Val way back when. Everly Brothers songs are in very singable close harmony. Val brought lots of song lyrics and we sang every song twice, switching between the Don and Phil parts. I discovered that I remembered almost all the songs including “Bye Bye Love”, “All I Have To Do Is Dream”, “Cryin’ In the Rain”, “So Sad”, “Problems”, “Devoted To You”, “When Will I Be Loved”, “Long Time Gone”, “When Will I Be Loved”,and “Walk Right Back”. Everyone, including me, had Such A Good Time!!

If you’re the right age, lots of tunes should be running through your head now!!