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Saturday, January 04, 2014

The Everly Brothers - I'm On My Way Home Again

with Clarence White on guitar

R.I.P. Phil Everly

Dedicated to the Memory of Colin 'Bill' Northcote

a dear friend from school days I learned today has passed away before Christmas just when I was trying to take in the death of Phil Everly - Bill and I shared a great deal and not least our love of music along with his older brother John who was pals with my older brother Steve, so it seemed apposite to post the Everly's version of 'I'm On My Way Home Again'. I dedicate this to you Billy!

We got up to all sorts and he introduced me to suede Levi jackets, going to festivals and The Grateful Dead, mostly by turning up one day with a copy of 'Working Man's Dead' under his arm, when it came out (1970?) and raving on and on about it. We hung out and played it into the ground, we lingered over analysing in wonderment the first Led Zeppelin album when it came out, we hung out at the recreation ground and generally made nuisances of ourselves. When I went away to college we lost touch, as you do, and I know he had his struggles but lately we had been talking about getting to meet up gain through another mutual friend in Leon. It wasn't to be and I am deeply saddened for that. Taken away too suddenly - my thoughts are with Liz, his children and all his family at this time

Of course Big O stepped up straight away and have posted two Everly Brothers gigs here

Everly Brothers from 1973

and another from

Everly Brothers - Holland 1990

They say -

On January 3, 2014, Phil Everly, a lifelong smoker, died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank at the age of 74. Phil died of complications from lung disease, his wife, Patti, told the Los Angeles Times. Phil Everly and his brother Don made up the Everly Brothers, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1950s and early 1960s. The pair had an onstage breakup in 1973 that led to a decade-long estrangement, but Phil later told Time magazine the brothers’ relationship had survived this. “Don and I are infamous for our split,” Phil said, “but we’re closer than most brothers,” the BBC reported. The Everly Brothers were elected to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, and they were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 1997.

On a technical note, I have always been obsessed by their guitars; the custom built Gibsons with the famed moustache plates and always wanted one but could never afford one. Epiphone did a copy budget version which you can still find knocking around for £200 or so and they were always beautiful. The Gibson version now would cost you a few thousand pound but they are really beautiful and play like butter. I first saw Donovan playing one and I think he liked it because they had stars running as fretboard markers and the moustache shaped pick guards were mock tortoisesehell and always black and gorgeous. Still want one today!