Review: The Everly Brothers - Songs Our Daddy Taught Us (1958)

Tracks: 1) Roving Gambler; 2) Down In The Willow Garden; 3) Long Time Gone; 4) Lightning Express; 5) That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine; 6) Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet; 7) Barbara Allen; 8) Oh So Many Years; 9) I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail; 10) Rockin’ Alone In An Old Rockin’ Chair; 11) Kentucky; 12) Put My Little Shoes Away.

REVIEW

The hits just kept coming for the Everly brothers throughout 1958 — ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’, ‘Bird Dog’, ‘Problems’ (we shall tackle these later) — so it must have been quite a shock for the fans to see the duo’s second LP, instead of predictably herding together their Bryant-penned pop-rock successes, stock up on dusty old folk ballads, none of which had anything to do with the rock’n’roll explosion or, let’s face it, the problems most relevant to the contemporary late Fifties teenage heart. It is hardly surprising that the LP became a commercial flop: much like Bob Dylan’s Self-Portrait twelve years later, this became a classic case of a beloved artist intentionally disconnecting with their audiences.

Unlike Dylan, of course, Phil and Don Everly had no particular reason to be pissed off at their audiences, and this gesture on their part was most probably driven by positive rather than negative emotions. They did, after all, have a fairly long history of singing precisely this kind of music together with their parents, Ike and Margaret, and their affection for more modern types of rock and pop music never came at the expense of their admiration for the oldies — or for their old folks, for that matter. So when they decided to take a twelve-song selection of old Appalachian ballads and country waltzes and record them just as they are — bare-bones, with just the brothers singing harmony over acoustic guitars — this was most likely intended as a debt of gratitude to their parents (hence the album title which is simply intended to tell the truth, rather than act as some sort of symbolic defiance in the face of their teen audiences). It is also quite possible that they may have entertained some hope that maybe, just maybe some of their new fans from the rock’n’roll generation would use this as a chance to be introduced to some of the classic gems of the old folk tradition without inevitably associating them with their boring old parents.

If there was any such hope, it did not work: the rock’n’roll fans of 1958 were not yet ready to be «duped» into trading their blue suede shoes for old hiking boots. Nor would the album really have appealed to the residents of Greenwich Village — with a few exceptions, the songs selected by the brothers feel too mainstreamish, the musical and lyrical relics of radio-friendly bourgeois entertainment from the pre-war years rather than the stark naked, dark, bleeding, socially relevant folk, blues, and gospel tunes delivered by the likes of Odetta or Dave Van Ronk. In short, it is hard to imagine a proper market for this stuff in 1958 — I’m sure Ike and Margaret must have been delighted by the humble gift, but who else would be willing to spend one’s hard-earned cash on somebody else’s loving family affair?

Presumably, according to laws of the genre, this is the point where I am expected to state just how much the album was ahead of its time and just how much ungratefully unrecognized genius it contains. And I would be happy to do it (because why not?), except for the sobering realization that I have never been able to enjoy it in its entirety. Taken in small doses, the formula that Phil and Don offer here is indeed sweet, touching, and even somewhat innovative for its time — clean, crisp, confident acoustic guitar and unwavering, focused, and caring twin harmonies, spreading love and respect all over the place. But twelve old ballads in a row, delivered in the exact same style, exuding the exact same mood, and generally rehashing the exact same two or three rhythmic patterns and tempos, can easily wear out the patience of even a very patient person. You might easily start out with the most emotional response ever to ‘Roving Gambler’ and find yourself in deep sleep — maybe even lethargic — by the time ‘Put My Little Shoes Away’ pulls the plug on the experiment.

This also makes it extremely difficult to comment on individual selections, because you do not really want a review of such an album to turn into actual discussions of what it is that makes ‘Barbara Allen’ or ‘I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail’ a great song (which they are, don’t worry about it); you are more interested in what it is that the Everlys bring out in their interpretations, and so far, I’ve been seriously stumped getting past words like «tenderness» and «sentimentality». Even when they boldly dare to include a creepy murder ballad (‘Down In The Willow Garden’, which they probably learned from Charlie Monroe’s 1947 version), its creepiness — undetectable until you scrutinize the lyrics — emerges only because of the stark contrast between the horrible story and the emotional compassion shown for the "dear little girl whose name was Rose Connolly"; Phil and Don must have been the most gallantly romantic couple of poisoners in the history of dark folk up to that moment (and, for what it’s worth, their rendition of ‘Willow Garden’ must have contributed somewhat to the newly found popularity of the murder ballad genre among more contemporary folk and pop singers).

Note that there is no lack of disturbing or tragic subjects in the duo’s other selections as well: themes of sin, desperation, loneliness, imprisonment, old age, and death cover about 90% of the material — I think ‘That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine’, probably intended specifically as a gift for Ike, is the only song centered on mostly positive emotions (and even then, its main motive is to "atone to that silver haired daddy of mine", implying that you’ve really been a bad boy here, too). From a certain point of view, the album could deserve the epithet «gritty» — but, once again, it only works if you really get into the lyrics of the songs; otherwise, the album might as well have been called Lullabies Our Daddy Put Us To Sleep With (not that ‘Down In The Willow Garden’ wouldn’t have made a darn fine lullaby).

Ultimately, the album works well as a cultural statement, and a serious potential influence on black-hearted mope-rock and terminally depressed singer-songwriters all over the globe, but probably not so well as a genuine emotional roller coaster that would keep you firmly in its grip from start to finish. This is indirectly proven by the weird circumstance of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and (not Green Day’s) Norah Jones collaboratively remaking the entire album as Foreverly in 2013: the very fact that they did this proves the record’s enduring cultural significance, but they also managed to make it even more boring than it used to be, which kinda hints that it was not all that entertaining from the beginning, either. It’s good to have it — had they just recorded one or two songs like ‘Willow Garden’ for a regular LP, they would almost certainly have been lost among the bouncy, catchy, energetic pop hits — but it is also a safe bet that most people would just rather listen to a best-of compilation of the brothers from their glory years, and I wouldn’t have the nerve to blame these people.

• Only Solitaire: The Everly Brothers reviews