Kurt Hernon: February, 2001

The Everly Brothers, Love and Cheap American Beer

Imagine something like this...and I do mean suspend all disbelief here...just go with this as an idea for a second. Imagine a band, a singer, or a duo mulling over a greatest hits type package.

Singer 1: Hey, I got a great fucking idea!

Singer2: What's that?

Singer1: Well, lets re-record the songs. Ya know? Make an album out of it.

Singer2: What?

Singer1: Yeah, just like I said, let's re-do the songs. I mean, still keep it our greatest hits, but new cuts of them. Let's make a fucking album for the deal!

Singer2: What the..what're you drinking there? Pete! What's in his glass, I gotta know. Anyone know what he's been drinking? Or smoking?

Singer1: No, no, no, come on man, let's just get some crack musicians and kick a little ass redoing these things. It'll be very cool

Singer2: That's not the point of something like this dumbass. The point is to get some product out there onto the market. To jump on our salability.

Singer1: But why? Why not do something better, something different?

Singer2: It just doesn't work that way. Intelligent Bystander: I think he's onto something with that. You've got fans out there, hardcore fans, so why give them the same workings plucked from old acetates? I think it's a grand idea.

Singer1: There we go...it's a go!

Big dumb idea #103 I'd guess. So would any suite full of spa going music executives who see the "greatest hits" package as a sucker punch to fans who are dumb enough to drop whatever green they can get their grubby middle-class dumb-ass hands on for cut after re-hashed cut of old shit that does nothing to improve upon or further interest in the original (save the modern era approach of tossing some shred of "unreleased" shit that the band had sitting around or were bored enough to pluck out in a half hour onto the end of such a record - sad).

So what the fuck am I railing about? The Everly Brothers my friends. That's right, the Everly Brothers! You know 'em as Don and Phil, I know 'em as the cats who just got me hot about country hard-bop bleeding into rock and roll infancy again! I'd kinda lost touch (got BORED) with the whole "birth of rock" theme thingy. You know the whole Sun Records, country jump jive schtick. Anyhow, on a lost cold January night I dug out an old platter called The Very Best of the Everly Brothers and I tossed it on the spinner whilst beering for a bit. Well the gosh-derned thing knocked my socks off (and nearly caused a spilt beer)! I was shaking my hind end like some devil-possessed mad man. Oh sure, I knew all of the songs, I'd heard them here, there, somewhere a gazillion times over the years, but I couldn't recall tossing this damn slab o' plastic - The Very Best of, which I owned but don't think I ever knew I owned - under the needle maybe ever. Like some ridiculous and unbelievable scene out of Nora Ephron sap script my wife and I danced, stumbled, dripped foaming beer, laughed, stumbled into each other, and sang along to all of the righteous cornpone of these Everly boys. Whew!

Anyhow, in the course of these wicked transgressions I feel in love again; with my wife, with life, with cheap American beer, with drunken bliss, and with the rock bottom base of what rock and roll is and means to anyone who loves the sounds be them sweet and clean, fast and furious, or down, dirty, and outright menacing.

Anyhow, this whole thing sort of struck me during a trip to the fridge for more beer that was spent yelping "Wake Up Little Susie" at lungs capacity and perusing the liner notes of this little sonic miracle. Holy shit! No wonder this record sounds so goddamn alive! These rumdum bastards got the whole lot of their studio studs together to RE-RECORD half of the goddamn record! I couldn't believe the savvy of these hepcats. There they were: Chet Atkins, Ray Edenton, Floyd Cramer, Floyd Chance, Buddy Harmon, and Hank Garland. The same batch of players who'd done the deal the first time around, but more than anxious to puff some new, loose, life into these grooving slivers of popcraft. Don't fool yourself either when you listen to this, the redo's outshine the replays by a Nashville mile, and that's the real shine on this gem. I'm still listening to the record and probably always will if only because of the aesthetic ideal that the Everly's had enough interest in the rock and roll they were making to keep MAKING IT.

I don't get these sensations often anymore (they used to be like adolescent erections to me once - every new sound got me going baybee!) and I miss them. But I know enough now to just go with them...ride them out...and remember that rock and roll not only doesn't have to suck just because I'm old, but that it can transcend even though it - the songs, the music, the ideas - may be old. That's all I ever ask from sounds, it's all I'm gonna ever ask, and rock and roll, no matter how much I tend to malign it, has never really let me down.

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Kurt's Reviews: February, 2001 January, 2001, December, 2000, November, 2000, October, 2000, September, 2000

Kurt's Column: January, 2001 December, 2000, November, 2000, October, 2000, September, 2000

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