Don Everly Net Worth At The Time Of His Death

Don Everly net worth

Don Everly net worth: This is one of the questions that people ask the most about Don Everly, and although they always end up answering it on other pages with an “I don’t know, you know” or “it depends” if there are some estimates that various web portals mention.




As of 2021, Don Everly’s net worth is estimated to be around $20 million at the time of his death. However, it is not possible to make an exact calculation about the fortune of this great Guitarist. We have estimated Don Everly’s net worth, salary, money, income, and assets.



Full Name
Isaac Donald Everly
Date of Birth February 1, 1937
Place of birth Brownie, Kentucky
Profession Guitarist, Composer, Singer-songwriter
Net Worth $20 million
Died  August 21, 2021
Nationality American

Death of Don Everly

Don Everly, the last surviving member of the Everly Brothers and a pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll, died at his home in Nashville on Saturday. He was 84 years old. A family spokesperson confirmed Everly’s death with The Times but did not reveal the cause.

The information was confirmed by a representative of the family in a statement sent to The Los Angeles Times. “Don lived up to what he felt in his heart. Don expressed his appreciation for the ability to live his dreams with his soul mate and wife, Adele, and to share the music that made him an Everly Brother,” said the spokesperson

The Everly Brothers (American rock group)

The Everly Brothers. Brothers Don and Phil Everly formed one of the great musical duos of all time. Very influential, mainly due to the exceptional use of their vocal harmonies in the development of rock’n’roll, country, and pop. His period of fame and success was between 1957 and 1961, being part of the Rock Hall of Fame since 1986.

Musical trajectory

Isaac Donald Everly (Don Everly), the older brother, was born in Brownie on February 1, 1937, a small town now-defunct on the outskirts of Central City, Kentucky, United States. Phil Everly was born in Chicago on January 19, 1939. Children of two country music lovers, (Ike and Margaret Embry Everly, the brothers grew up in Iowa. They played together with their parents on live radio and not very important live shows in the western United States.

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the duo The Everly Brothers installed on the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The influence of the Everly Brothers and their almost uninterrupted series of successes was very long. On the one hand, the romantic duo taught their contemporaries the best strategies to reach the listener’s heart; on the other, more closely linked to their musical merits, The Everly Brothers laid the foundations for the sound of the beat groups of the sixties, which appropriated that vocal style, or rather, “choral”.

Don and Phil, given names of The Everly Brothers, were born into a family of artists. His father Ike, originally from Kentucky, stopped working in the mine at the age of 25 to settle in the Midwest and be able to realize his dreams of musical glory using the great possibilities opened up by radio. He was a good guitarist, and it is said that his teacher was the black Arnold Schultz, from whom he learned that “two-finger” blues technique commonly known (with a hint of racism) as “nigger pickin”. Mama Everly, Margaret, accompanied her husband singing, and the two performed in a long series of shows throughout the states of Illinois, Tennessee, and Indiana.

The children were born precisely during the wandering career of the two musicians. The Everlys, now four, continued to roam and the two newcomers, who had inherited their father’s guitar flair, soon made their debut at a radio microphone. At the age of seven and five respectively, Isaac Donald called Don, and Philip was already participating in the family radio shows that took place on local radios, singing country and gospel songs, such as’ That old rugged cross’ and ‘ Don’t let love die ‘.

When the Everly parents abandoned music as their main activity, in 1955, the boys settled in Tennessee, where they tried to continue their studies and perfect their show. Nashville was the most suitable place, although there were hard times of study and waiting; and the two brothers stood in line with the huge crowd of hopeful young men who had moved there in search of money and fame. However, the two brothers received preferential treatment thanks to their friendship with Chet Atkins, the famous guitarist, and producer who had participated in an Elvis Presley session., who knew Ike and Margaret well. It was Atkins who got the first money from The Everly Brothers, making it possible for a Don song, ‘Thou shalt not steal, to be recorded by Kitty Wells.

Contract with Columbia

The Everly Brothers managed to sign a six-month contract with Columbia on November 8, 1955, thanks to the interest, according to the story, of a politician’s mistress. The day after the signing, Phil and Don moved to the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, which the record company used for recordings.

With them they were in Carl Smith’s studio The Tunesmiths; They were very good musicians, but at that very moment they were very tired, exhausted from the return trip from a concert hundreds of miles from Nashville. For this reason, the two young debutants had to do everything quickly, recording four songs composed by them in twenty-two minutes; ‘Keep a-lovin’ me ‘on side A and’ The sun keeps shining ‘on the other side of the album were released on February 6, 1956, but went almost unnoticed (the other two songs remained unreleased until 1981 when they were released). published alongside two already known songs in a retrospective mini-album). These were country songs not particularly deserving of fame.

At the expiration of the Columbia contract, Phil and Don were rejected in the Capitol and Cadence tryouts and even went so far as to have to pack their bags and return with their parents to Chicago. But through Wesley Rose, son of the famous founder of the Acuff-Rose publishing house, who at that time was organizing a small country and western company for Cadence, they were recovered, despite complaints from Cadence’s boss, Archie Bleyer, that I had already personally ruled them out. Wesley overcame Bleyer’s resistance by sending him a tape of The Everly Brothers.

Between the signings with Columbia in early 1956 and with Cadence at the end of the year, rock’n roll’s assault on the charts had taken place; the protagonists were Little Richard, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry. And rock’n’roll, with its innovative drive, was precisely what The Everly Brothers needed to transform their dream into a salable product.

The year 1956 was the year of ‘Bye-bye love’. The song, composed by a famous couple of Acuff-Rose authors, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, was initially rejected by many artists, arriving by chance at Don and Phil’s table; Don added an instrumental introduction and the boys recorded it at RCA studios in Nashville under the supervision of his friend Chet Atkins, who appears on the record as a guitarist. Atkins had brought together the best instrumentalists in town (drummer Murray “Buddy” Harman, bassist Floyd “Lightnin” Chance, and guitarists Ray Edenton and James Cayton Day) around The Everly Brothers and the song, released in March 1957 took off surprisingly fast.

When The Everly Brothers returned from a three-week tour along the Mississippi, they found themselves high on the national charts. Phil and Don belonged to that esteemed tradition of country artists who tried to “elevate” that genre through the use of refined vocal harmonies. Some of the names belonging to this tradition were Bill Monroe, one of the forerunners, who since 1936 united bluegrass and vocal pieces, and also The Louvin Brothers, who like Monroe were gospel interpreters, and “transferred” the influence of their music religious to the arrangements of their “secular” songs. In addition, The Everly Brothers also featured rock’n’roll.

In Don’s guitar style you could see his admiration for Bo Diddley, in the form of moving and syncopated rhythms; the interweaving of the two acoustic guitars of Don and Phil (one busy playing chords in the lower part of the fret; the other, in the upper part) will allow them, later, to face scores of Little Richard and will become the brand of Unmistakable factory of The Everly Brothers.

The themes of the songs, originally composed mainly by the Bryant couple, were not far from those that were fashionable among rock’n’rollers; love was in the foreground, as the song titles themselves prove, and it was always observed from a youthful point of view. Even as the brothers increased their experience and began to write their own repertoire, they never departed, in lyrics, from the world that had brought them success.

The prototype of a song by The Everly Brothers, lyrics aside, would be a detailed arrangement, both vocal and instrumental, that highlighted the vocals and left the acoustic guitars in a discreet background, to which the bass, drums, and guitar were added. piano (one of the most frequent pianists of The Everly Brothers was Floyd Cramer ); the final touch was entrusted to an electric guitar solo.

Starting in May 1957, Don and Phil began a long pilgrimage to the most famous television shows (those of Ed Sullivan, Perry Como, Arthur Murray and Bob Crosby). They were on the crest of the wave for the success of their second single, ‘Wake up little Susie’, which reached, despite some controversy, to the top of the American charts. ‘Wake up little Susie’, signed by the Bryants, did not like the president of Cadence, Archie Bleyer, because he understood that the painting presented in the song was excessively “exaggerated”. The song came out like this later in a “censored” version that, however, did not change the terms of The Everly Brothers’ invitation to a girl to spend the night away from home in the company of her lover.

The success of The Everly Brothers

In favor of the success of The Everly Brothers, since their debut, the originality of their sound has contributed; his unity prevented the normal practice of covers from being applied to his songs. Attempts by British artists, who used to pick up on American hits, proved totally useless when it came to “copying” a song by the brothers. For example, ‘Bye-bye love’, recorded by Beverly Sisters, Rory Blackwell and The Blackjacks, and Russ Conway and The Dene Boys, did not make it to the top of the charts. Wake up little Susie, which had two British versions (Russ Conway and King Brothers), was surpassed on the same English charts by the original version of The Everly Brothers.

Thus, when the brothers’ third single, ‘This little girl of mine’, was released, no artist tried to emulate them. It hadn’t taken much for them to learn their lesson, The Everly Brothers possessed peculiar qualities (more of sound than charisma) that were impossible to reproduce. ‘This little girl of mine’ barely reached number twenty-eight in the United States charts, but the following four singles, released during 1958 – 1959, continued the duo’s race to success.

These were their titles and positions on the charts: ‘All I have to do is dream’ and ‘Claudette (numbers 1 and 30 respectively),’ Bird dog ‘and’ Devoted to you ‘(2 and 10),’ Problems’ and ‘Love of my Life’ (2 and 40), and ‘Poor Jenny’ and ‘Take a message to Mary’ (22 and 16). With the recording, in 1959, of ‘Till kissed you’ and ‘Oh what a feeling’, Don made his debut as a composer writing both pieces and The Everly Brothers also showed to have achieved friendship and admiration in the entertainment world (in the recording of the single They participated Jerry Allison and Sonny Curtis of the Crickets ).

In the summer of 1958, Don and Phil made a risky move by recording an album called ‘Songs our daddy taught us’, that is, “the songs that daddy taught us,” in which they paid homage to their musical roots. Songs like ‘Lightning express’,’ Barbara Allen ‘and’ Rovin ‘gambler’ were strange to their most recent production, but there they fitted together thanks to the unmistakable vocal harmonies of the duo. ‘Songs our daddy taught us’ showed the desire to express themselves of The Everly Brothers, which was translated, in the case of the recording of ‘Let it be me’ (English version of a song by Gilbert Becaud ), in the abandonment of Nashville by a New York study.

In New York, they recorded with a string orchestra consisting of eight violins and a cello. ‘Let it be me’ reached the Top 10 in 1960.

The behavior of the fans was not altered by the news that Don had married and was already a father; the marriage had been kept secret at first because it was feared that “married idols” would turn out to be distasteful to admirers.

Controversy

The only difficulty of The Everly Brothers at this time is related to issues of the record business, a controversy from which, finally, they will not be able to be left out; the two contenders in the “Everly Brothers” affair were Wesley Rose, who wanted the siblings to use songs owned by Acuff-Rose, and Bleyer, Cadence’s boss, who denied the duo their choice of songs. The issue ended with the cancellation of the contract with Cadence by Don and Phil and the signing with Warner Brothers, led by Rose, which got them a 10-year contract. Don and Phil hoped that the new contract would give them the opportunity to express themselves more freely, to explore new paths on their albums.

The debut single for Warner showed that changes were imminent; Released in 1960, ‘Cathy’s Clown’, signed by Don and Phil and awarded first place in both America and England, continued the discourse of youth angst, but more “softened.” At the same time, Archie Bleyer was taking revenge in his own way for the betrayal of The Everly Brothers by releasing material that had remained in his possession: ‘When will I be loved’ / ‘Be-bop-a-Lula’ (July 1960 ), ‘Like strangers’ / ‘Brand new machine’ ( 1961 ) and ‘Lightning express’ / ‘l’m here to get my baby out of jail’ ( 1962) were Don and Phil’s last singles for Cadence.

Success continued with Warner Brothers; Little Richard’s second single, ‘Lucille’, was powered by six Nashville guitarists including Chet Atkins, Hank Garland, Ray Edenton, and Sammy Pruett. ‘Ebony eyes’ was the song that received the least attention, but surely it is among the masterpieces of The Everly Brothers since it is the most beautiful song about death written at that time (and perhaps it was precisely the plot, nothing frivolous, the one that prevented ‘Ebony eyes’ from becoming a number one). ‘Ebony eyes’ and its sad account of an air tragedy was accompanied by one of Don and Phil’s best recordings, the lighthearted ‘Walk Right Back’, written by Sonny Curtis.

First album

The first album for Warner, produced by the same Don and Phil, pales in comparison with the second, ‘A Date with the Everly Brothers’, one of the best works of the sixties. It featured three hits (‘Lucille’, ‘Cathy’s clown’ and ‘Stick with me baby’), but almost every other track could have made their way onto the singles charts. The Everly Brothers’ intention not to wither into a cliché is confirmed by the choice of their songs and a large number of different versions of them. They took up, for example, ‘Temptation’, a song originally sung by Bing Crosby in the movie ‘Going Hollywood ‘ ( 1934), and, unhappy with the first recording, they made three versions between September 1960 and May 1961.

First recording

The first recording is associated with the session in which ‘Walk right back’ was born and the third with the recording of ‘Stick with me, baby ‘. Precisely ‘Temptation’ was the cause of the rupture between the two brothers Everly and Wesley Rose; the reason for the fight, as it had happened before, referred to the repertoire of The Everly Brothers, on which Rose wanted to have the last word. The fight had visible consequences (Don and Phil could no longer access the Bryant material), reflected in the low sales of ‘Both sides of an evening’, the new album by The Everly Brothers, which was based exclusively on already famous pieces. like ‘Hi Lili Hi Lo’, ‘Wayward wind’ and ‘

The slow and progressive decline had begun; Whether it was due to Rose’s absence or whether it was simply a taste change in the field of pop music brought on by the so-called British invasion is unclear. An important role in favor of the first thesis is the promotional disorganization with which the recruitment of The Everly Brothers by the US Navy was directed between late 1961 and early 1962; he turned off his star, instead of serving as a promotion, as in the case of Elvis Presley.

Be that as it may, the last The Everly Brothers albums to break into the Top 10, both in America and England, was ‘Crying in the rain’ and ‘That’s old fashioned. The next four singles failed to make it and the fifth, ‘The Ferris wheel’, maxed out at position number seventy-two on the 1964 U.S. charts.

By the mid-sixties, The Everly Brothers had turned to rock but were under-appreciated by audiences and critics, who indifferently welcomed the release of ‘Rock’n’soul’, ‘Beat’n’soul’ and of ‘Two yanks in England’, in which Jimmy Page, then a member of The Yardbirds, collaborated. In the second half of the decade, they tried a new approach to their country roots, as can be seen in ‘Roots’, which in 1968It marked a milestone in the duo’s career, showing the past to new generations. This album, the last for Warner, before The Everly Brothers went to RCA, however, did not reflect the harshness and tensions in which the relations between the two brothers had developed for years. Both had been through divorces and drug problems, both of them were very burdened by the montage built around them.

Phil destroyed his guitar

The official date of the separation of the couple coincides with a tumultuous concert in Buena Park in California, on July 13, 1973; the intention to record albums separately, already implicit in the record deal with RCA, and which, in theory, should not have impaired the continuation of their association as The Everly Brothers, is affirmed in a furious and neurotic show. Both brothers came on stage and said goodbye in front of the public. Phil destroyed his guitar on stage, while Don, finished the concert alone, thus responding to the audience who asked him where Phil had gone: “The Everly Brothers have been dead for ten years.”

Since then the fame of The Everly Brothers has been maintained thanks to the interpretations of their songs by other singers; we remember, among others, ‘The price of love’ by Bryan Ferry and ‘When will I be loved’ by Linda Ronstadt and, in addition, in the time of the British new wave, a tribute mini-album signed by Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. These versions, along with the duo’s vocal style, imitated by a large number of pop and rock groups who declared themselves to be influenced by The Everly Brothers (some names are excellent: The Beatles, The Byrds, The Mamas, and The Papas, The Lovin ‘Spoonful, Simon and Garfunkel), weigh more in the memory of fans than the work of each one alone.

These include a ‘Brother juke box’ by Don and a series of attempts by Phil (‘There’s nothing too good for my baby, ‘Mystic line’ and ‘Phil’s diner’) that served to confirm that only remained, intact, the legend. The legend of an unsurpassed group, according to rock veteran Chuck Berry, who, putting cynicism aside for once, would declare: “The first time I saw Elvis I didn’t think he was as good as The Everly Brothers … And I don’t even think The Beatles were up there with Don and Phil. “

Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.

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