# Barry Mazor: Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Legacy

An episode of [Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1751194045), 20 Aug 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c41d385f-64b2-4514-9415-b4d50130ce01/f2d03ad5-1454-477c-b943-b4d5016ccf1a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d1742151-672b-4e4d-997b-b4d50130ce0c

Barry Mazor unveils the untold story behind his comprehensive biography "Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story," offering unprecedented insights into the lives and legacy of rock and roll pioneers Don and Phil Everly. This meticulously researched 400-page book represents the first serious, depth-sourced biography of the iconic duo whose harmonies and groundbreaking fusion of country and rock shaped generations of music. • Writing process took three and a half years of deep research and document analysis • Many key figures from the Everlys' early career have passed away, requiring extensive archival research • International fan club provided rare newspaper clippings and materials from around the world • Interviewed previously unheard voices including producers, road managers, wives and girlfriends • Explores the complex relationship between two brothers "practically stapled together for 60 years" • Reveals personal struggles including Don Everly's two suicide attempts • Examines their musical innovation combining sweet country harmonies with R&B rhythms • Highlights their massive influence on The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Beach Boys and countless others • First sentence of book: "The difference between the famed and the rest of us is that so many people think they know them" Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story is available now wherever books are sold. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:14] Speaker 1: My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to
[0:17] Speaker 1: work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years
[0:21] Speaker 1: of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether
[0:26] Speaker 1: famous stars or behind the scenes staff, have fascinating stories
[0:32] Speaker 1: to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories,
[0:36] Speaker 1: which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution
[0:40] Speaker 1: of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these
[0:43] Speaker 1: narratives providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career.
[0:48] Speaker 1: We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their
[0:51] Speaker 1: struggles and successes, and hear from people who helped them
[0:54] Speaker 1: achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and
[0:58] Speaker 1: insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Minotaur.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is acclaimed
[1:09] Speaker 1: music journalist and author Barry Mazur. as he unveils Blood Harmony,
[1:15] Speaker 1: The Everly Brothers Story, the definitive biography of rock and
[1:19] Speaker 1: roll pioneers Don and Phil Everly. With his signature blend
[1:23] Speaker 1: of meticulous research and vivid storytelling, he delves into the
[1:27] Speaker 1: lives of the iconic duo whose harmonies and groundbreaking fusion
[1:32] Speaker 1: of country and pop shape modern music. Drawing on exclusive
[1:36] Speaker 1: interviews and rare archival material, Blood Harmony offers a compelling
[1:41] Speaker 1: portrait of two brothers whose music continues to resonate across generations.
[1:46] Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have him here to share the
[1:48] Speaker 1: story behind writing this remarkable book. Thanks for coming on.
[1:53] Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me. I don't think we met,
[1:56] Speaker 2: but now we have.
[1:58] Speaker 1: You're in Nashville, right?
[2:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
[2:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in Nashville, too. It's amazing our paths have
[2:03] Speaker 1: not crossed. Been here 32 years now.
[2:06] Speaker 2: Well, we've been here 22 years. Of course, they still
[2:09] Speaker 2: ask me where I'm really from.
[2:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't get that as much as I used
[2:14] Speaker 1: to now. I worked at radio for a while. Of course,
[2:17] Speaker 1: I had to watch my speech, so to not have
[2:20] Speaker 1: any particular accent. I don't worry about that now. You
[2:23] Speaker 1: get what you get.
[2:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done radio, too. I had a streaming radio
[2:28] Speaker 2: show here for quite a while out of Acme Radio downtown,
[2:31] Speaker 2: like 190 episodes. But they can't quite place mine, because
[2:36] Speaker 2: we moved around a lot in Pennsylvania. It's just sort
[2:38] Speaker 2: of general northeast in Pennsylvania territory. No spot in particular.
[2:44] Speaker 1: Well, it's always nice to go down memory lane, but
[2:47] Speaker 1: we are here to talk about your book that you've
[2:49] Speaker 1: written about the Everly Brothers. So can you give us
[2:52] Speaker 1: a little information on what led to that?
[2:54] Speaker 2: Well, I think, as you know, I've been writing about
[2:56] Speaker 2: music as a journalist and also as an author for
[2:59] Speaker 2: a long time, some 50 years at this point. Like
[3:02] Speaker 2: a lot of writers about music, I noticed something that
[3:06] Speaker 2: simply wasn't a serious, depth-sourced thing. book about the lives
[3:11] Speaker 2: and music of the Everly Brothers. There were fan books,
[3:14] Speaker 2: but if you look at the 10 original members of
[3:16] Speaker 2: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, all of them
[3:18] Speaker 2: have multiple books like that by this point. but not
[3:21] Speaker 2: these guys. And I was having an online conversation with
[3:24] Speaker 2: another music writer I know, Elijah Wald, who, among other things,
[3:27] Speaker 2: did the Dylan Goes Electric thing. And he was asking
[3:30] Speaker 2: that question, which keeps being asked. And I said, I
[3:33] Speaker 2: don't know. We were tossing it around. It turned out
[3:35] Speaker 2: my literary agent was picking up on this conversation. And
[3:38] Speaker 2: he said, why don't you do it? And I said,
[3:40] Speaker 2: why don't I? And that came pretty automatically because I've
[3:43] Speaker 2: been listening to them since I was eight years old.
[3:45] Speaker 2: The alley with the transistor radio in Scranton, PA. And
[3:50] Speaker 2: Bird Dog was on the radio. And ever after.
[3:54] Speaker 1: I remember those days with the transistor radio. When you
[3:58] Speaker 1: started this, you had to get the backstory. So how
[4:01] Speaker 1: did you approach that in getting this started?
[4:04] Speaker 2: Well, I have a certain way I work always with
[4:06] Speaker 2: this stuff. Yeah, you start with the obvious. I go
[4:08] Speaker 2: to the most obvious available sources and work up a timeline.
[4:12] Speaker 2: Once you do that from different sources, pretty early on,
[4:15] Speaker 2: things start to gel against each other. Oh, that happened
[4:18] Speaker 2: the same time as that. Oh, they said that, but
[4:20] Speaker 2: they were here. You start to get questions. And then
[4:22] Speaker 2: you start to fill it in. I filled it in
[4:24] Speaker 2: for three years.
[4:26] Speaker 1: And.
[4:27] Speaker 2: From there, eventually, if you're lucky, and I really felt
[4:30] Speaker 2: that happen this time, along the way, I found out
[4:32] Speaker 2: what this was really about. And you start to shape
[4:35] Speaker 2: the story and the story arc to work for the
[4:38] Speaker 2: story you're telling. If you work my way, you don't
[4:41] Speaker 2: go in knowing exactly where that's going to take you.
[4:43] Speaker 2: You find it, which is what I did.
[4:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes total sense. I've heard from several of
[4:49] Speaker 1: my writer friends that once they get going into a book,
[4:54] Speaker 1: the characters kind of take over and they write down
[4:58] Speaker 1: what's happening, but they're not really controlling it. Did that
[5:02] Speaker 1: kind of scenario happen to you at all during this
[5:04] Speaker 1: writing process? Is there any similarities there at all?
[5:08] Speaker 2: Well, it's usually fiction writers say that, and it's kind
[5:10] Speaker 2: of spooky if you ask me. These were real people
[5:13] Speaker 2: with real lives. They were facts of the matter that
[5:15] Speaker 2: came up and behaviors that came. And I had a
[5:18] Speaker 2: pretty vast array of material to dig into to look at.
[5:21] Speaker 2: One of the things you don't understand is that it
[5:23] Speaker 2: shocks people. But the first time Don and Phil Everly
[5:26] Speaker 2: walked into a recording studio here in Nashville is 70
[5:29] Speaker 2: years ago this year.
[5:31] Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't realize it was that long.
[5:33] Speaker 2: This is history. Everybody who worked on their big hits
[5:36] Speaker 2: for Cadence Records, the ones people know best, the Bye
[5:38] Speaker 2: Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, you know, All I
[5:40] Speaker 2: Have to Do is Dream, they're all gone. There's not
[5:43] Speaker 2: a single person that were involved with those still alive.
[5:46] Speaker 2: So this was history. Then I asked you if you
[5:48] Speaker 2: interviewed Mr. Lincoln. So this is go to the documentary.
[5:51] Speaker 2: And it was like that. And there's a lot of documents,
[5:54] Speaker 2: most of them untouched, precisely because there hadn't been a
[5:57] Speaker 2: deep dive book like this.
[5:59] Speaker 1: With everyone associated with the first hits and not here now,
[6:04] Speaker 1: what were some of the challenges you hit trying to
[6:06] Speaker 1: do this deep dive into the background of them?
[6:09] Speaker 2: Well. The challenge was to meet the goal, which this
[6:12] Speaker 2: is a biography, and you want them to be alive
[6:15] Speaker 2: and on the page, and you want to deliver what
[6:17] Speaker 2: were they doing in that room, what were they feeling,
[6:20] Speaker 2: what were they thinking. So you particularly look for material
[6:23] Speaker 2: like that when you find it. I thought it was
[6:25] Speaker 2: a screenwriting background, which means you look for scenes that
[6:28] Speaker 2: are really telling about that, that show that stuff.
[6:33] Speaker 1: So as you moved on this and did the deeper
[6:36] Speaker 1: dive and it was all coming together, What surprised you?
[6:40] Speaker 1: Because any time you do something like this, there's always
[6:43] Speaker 1: going to be something that jumps out of left field
[6:46] Speaker 1: and catches you off guard. You just didn't anticipate that,
[6:49] Speaker 1: and you kind of go, whoa, what just happened here?
[6:53] Speaker 2: Well, I suspected that these were two complex individuals. I'd
[6:56] Speaker 2: actually met and interviewed Phil at one point, not Don. But,
[7:00] Speaker 2: you know, you get an image of the Everly Brothers,
[7:02] Speaker 2: especially kind of stuck at the beginning with these sort
[7:05] Speaker 2: of rock gods with high-piled ducktail haircuts and they're smiling
[7:09] Speaker 2: and everybody's like, you know, aren't they telegenic? But these
[7:11] Speaker 2: were two intelligent, complex individuals. And there is no simple
[7:15] Speaker 2: version of who they were. There's no simple version of
[7:17] Speaker 2: how they related to each other. Because there's this thing
[7:20] Speaker 2: called the Everly Brothers. It's a business. It's a group.
[7:23] Speaker 2: It's an act. And then there's this guy, Phil Everly,
[7:26] Speaker 2: and this guy, Don Everly. These brothers who had to
[7:29] Speaker 2: live with this practically stapled to each other for 60 years.
[7:34] Speaker 2: How do you do that? What's it like for them?
[7:36] Speaker 2: So I think the degree to which... their personal relations
[7:40] Speaker 2: and temperaments aligned with the way they related to that
[7:44] Speaker 2: act over all that time, how they stuck with it,
[7:47] Speaker 2: and the troubles they had. People have often heard that
[7:49] Speaker 2: they had clashes and differences and this kind of thing,
[7:52] Speaker 2: but they were closely aligned. So the book is about
[7:55] Speaker 2: who these guys were in the music and who the
[7:58] Speaker 2: act was. It had a beat, and it very closely
[8:00] Speaker 2: connected those two questions.
[8:02] Speaker 1: Did you, or what kind of reactions did you get
[8:05] Speaker 1: from people that either knew them or was associated with them,
[8:10] Speaker 1: from reading the book that they were maybe shocked? Well,
[8:14] Speaker 1: maybe not shocked, but surprised?
[8:16] Speaker 2: Well, yeah. As I said, there's some people that were
[8:19] Speaker 2: not available to me except in documents. And by the way,
[8:22] Speaker 2: even by documents, we have, you'll know, and we have
[8:25] Speaker 2: a well-known music journalist here in town, a friend of mine,
[8:28] Speaker 2: Bob Orman, Robert K. Orman.
[8:30] Speaker 1: Yes, I'm very familiar with him.
[8:31] Speaker 2: He had written about the Everlys. He was a great
[8:33] Speaker 2: fan of those and written about them many times. But
[8:35] Speaker 2: when you write for a newspaper, you do an article,
[8:38] Speaker 2: you do an interview with Don Everly in the 90s,
[8:41] Speaker 2: and they use two sentences from it in a newspaper story. Well,
[8:45] Speaker 2: he had all the rest of that material, which he
[8:47] Speaker 2: made available to me. There's an international fan club for
[8:50] Speaker 2: the Everleys, which still has like 18,000 members. And they
[8:54] Speaker 2: have preserved clippings from all over the world, from newspaper
[8:57] Speaker 2: coverage in Appleton, Wisconsin, or in Brussels, or in the Philippines.
[9:02] Speaker 2: And they had this great collection, which they shared with me.
[9:04] Speaker 2: And you start to put these things together. There's a
[9:07] Speaker 2: lot of Phil and Don in there. I got to
[9:09] Speaker 2: pick what made the book.
[9:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so great. So that leads me to this.
[9:14] Speaker 1: You got to pick what you was going to put
[9:17] Speaker 1: into the book.
[9:18] Speaker 2: That's the job.
[9:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[9:20] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[9:21] Speaker 1: How difficult was that? You have all this information and
[9:25] Speaker 1: a lot of it was very vital to what they were.
[9:28] Speaker 1: Then you have to compile it all and put it
[9:30] Speaker 1: all together in such a structure that tells the story
[9:33] Speaker 1: the way that you wanted it to.
[9:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, once I find the structure, you go with
[9:37] Speaker 2: it and you shape it and you rewrite and you rewrite.
[9:39] Speaker 2: And as I said, I've been a journalist and an
[9:41] Speaker 2: author and an editor for 50 years. I've written hundreds
[9:44] Speaker 2: of profiles for the Wall Street Journal, for No Depression magazine.
[9:48] Speaker 2: The idea of how do you find the beginning, middle,
[9:50] Speaker 2: and end of a thing is kind of pretty natural
[9:53] Speaker 2: to me by this point. Yes, it's a more complex
[9:55] Speaker 2: thing with a book. You start to find it. You know,
[9:57] Speaker 2: it was longer at one point. And tightening it up,
[10:00] Speaker 2: the very act of tightening it up gets you closer to, yeah,
[10:03] Speaker 2: this is what it's about. Don't need that. This is
[10:05] Speaker 2: the thing. It's the work.
[10:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. How long did it take you from start
[10:11] Speaker 1: to finish?
[10:12] Speaker 2: Three and a half years.
[10:13] Speaker 1: Three and a half years. So when you set back
[10:16] Speaker 1: and it's all complete, I know when I listen to
[10:19] Speaker 1: something that I've produced, I'll always have that, oh, I
[10:23] Speaker 1: should have done this, I should have done that. It's
[10:25] Speaker 1: all good, but you still find things that you could
[10:27] Speaker 1: have done in your mind better. Did you have any
[10:30] Speaker 1: of those, oh, why didn't I do this moment?
[10:32] Speaker 2: Well, I think that happened earlier on, so I was
[10:35] Speaker 2: able to get at it. Yeah, this is the other thing,
[10:38] Speaker 2: get some good experiences. experiencing, you'll know it too. That's
[10:41] Speaker 2: all true. And I have, you know, two previous books
[10:44] Speaker 2: published out there and there's things I learned. You know,
[10:47] Speaker 2: as soon as the book comes out, people call you
[10:49] Speaker 2: with 14 pieces of information you never heard before. The
[10:52] Speaker 2: answer is eventually you get off the pot. It's like, yeah,
[10:55] Speaker 2: this is done now. I like deadline work. You know,
[10:58] Speaker 2: I could have asked for like, what are these 10
[10:59] Speaker 2: year biographies? I'll talk to you someday. You know, I
[11:03] Speaker 2: agreed to three years. So we concentrate and get it done.
[11:06] Speaker 2: I'm a deadline kind of guy, and that works for me.
[11:09] Speaker 2: So right now, you know, it just went out and
[11:11] Speaker 2: published in print over the last two weeks. And if
[11:14] Speaker 2: that point's going to come again where I say, oh,
[11:16] Speaker 2: I should have, it hasn't hit yet. Maybe it will.
[11:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So you was a fan.
[11:23] Speaker 1: You listened to them, like you said, back in the
[11:26] Speaker 1: day on Transistor Radio. You had your perception of them,
[11:31] Speaker 1: what they were. Do you have a different perception of
[11:34] Speaker 1: what they were now that you're finished?
[11:35] Speaker 2: Well, I think the difference was about them as individuals.
[11:38] Speaker 2: I was aware. I had a pretty large... Their stuff
[11:41] Speaker 2: is in circulation now. Things like Big Bear Family, boxes
[11:45] Speaker 2: of their music from all through the years. I knew
[11:47] Speaker 2: well past their early hits that the people who only
[11:50] Speaker 2: very casually know them know. So I was aware of
[11:53] Speaker 2: the different periods of their music, their comebacks, the different labels,
[11:57] Speaker 2: the styles. So I was able to hear some work
[12:00] Speaker 2: in the studio. I was able to see something people
[12:03] Speaker 2: haven't seen for a long time. Their primetime summer replacement
[12:06] Speaker 2: TV show from 1970. There were things that I could
[12:10] Speaker 2: get at that maybe evolved the way I could talk
[12:12] Speaker 2: about the making of some of these records. And talking
[12:16] Speaker 2: to people, I learned something about the production process. But
[12:18] Speaker 2: most of what I felt like I learned was about
[12:21] Speaker 2: the people, you know. And I didn't have really locked
[12:24] Speaker 2: down perceptions about it. I learned it. I think my
[12:27] Speaker 2: favorite question people ask is, how did you know all that?
[12:30] Speaker 2: Of course, the answer is, I didn't know all that.
[12:32] Speaker 2: I found out all that.
[12:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, right. That makes sense. So as it started coming
[12:38] Speaker 1: together and it was taking shape, did you ever have
[12:43] Speaker 1: that feeling that there's just one more story, one more item,
[12:48] Speaker 1: one more topic, anything that that might just put the
[12:52] Speaker 1: cherry on top to make it that much better for you?
[12:55] Speaker 2: Well, there's always more. I mean, the fact of the
[12:57] Speaker 2: situation is, as I said, a lot of people, if
[13:00] Speaker 2: I had any idea I was doing this book 15
[13:02] Speaker 2: years ago, I would have been able to talk to
[13:05] Speaker 2: a lot of people that aren't available to me to
[13:07] Speaker 2: talk to anymore. There's always that, you know, but it's now.
[13:11] Speaker 2: You make the most of what you can do with
[13:12] Speaker 2: when and where you do it and the materials you
[13:14] Speaker 2: can get at. So I don't worry about that too much.
[13:17] Speaker 2: I There's enough to do, as you asked before, with
[13:21] Speaker 2: what you have.
[13:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Now that it's completed, it's getting out
[13:26] Speaker 1: there for everybody to purchase. Are you getting reactions yet?
[13:30] Speaker 1: And if you are, are they the reactions that you
[13:33] Speaker 1: had hoped for?
[13:34] Speaker 2: Well, I'm already getting it. There have been, I gotta say,
[13:37] Speaker 2: really positive reviews of the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal,
[13:41] Speaker 2: the Washington Post. readers, magazines that cover books as they
[13:45] Speaker 2: come out. It's been pretty universally as much as I
[13:48] Speaker 2: could ask for. And I don't mean, yeah, and they're
[13:51] Speaker 2: like five stars, thumbs up, must read, all that kind
[13:53] Speaker 2: of stuff. But I think what really touches me is
[13:56] Speaker 2: that the things I meant to do, which I just
[13:58] Speaker 2: said to you, which is get them on the page,
[14:00] Speaker 2: show how what they made related to who they are.
[14:03] Speaker 2: There's a bunch of smart reviewers who've been picking up
[14:05] Speaker 2: on what I hoped would be found. And when you
[14:07] Speaker 2: hear somebody's picking up on what you wanted to do,
[14:10] Speaker 2: there's nothing more gratifying than that.
[14:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that way you know that they are getting
[14:15] Speaker 1: exactly what you were writing about.
[14:17] Speaker 2: And not everybody will, and you can't count on that.
[14:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is so true. Now that you have
[14:24] Speaker 1: this under the belt, what's next on the list of
[14:27] Speaker 1: things to do?
[14:29] Speaker 2: Oh, I have no idea. What's next for Flocky is
[14:33] Speaker 2: helping market this book for the months ahead. And I'm
[14:36] Speaker 2: 75 years old, man. I mean, I hope I do
[14:39] Speaker 2: another book, but I got to catch a breath.
[14:41] Speaker 1: Sure, I get that.
[14:42] Speaker 2: There was years between my last one on Ralph Peer
[14:45] Speaker 2: and this. The subject has to kind of bubble up
[14:47] Speaker 2: and find me. You know, I think at this point
[14:49] Speaker 2: in life, the next time I commit, you know, years,
[14:51] Speaker 2: I better mean it. You know, it's like, it's not
[14:54] Speaker 2: like I'm making my next single. You know, this is
[14:57] Speaker 2: a book. And And I'll be back writing my reviews
[15:01] Speaker 2: for the papers and those sort of things after a
[15:03] Speaker 2: few months. I took a break from that, but I
[15:05] Speaker 2: don't know. We'll see. I have certain things in the
[15:08] Speaker 2: back of my head, but I don't know which one
[15:10] Speaker 2: will get to be real.
[15:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, so now that it's done, it's completely written, my
[15:16] Speaker 1: question is, are you happy? Are you happy with the
[15:19] Speaker 1: way it all turned out?
[15:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have to say so. I mean, I
[15:23] Speaker 2: kind of agree with that old adage that it's better
[15:25] Speaker 2: to have written than to be writing. I mean, writing
[15:27] Speaker 2: is hard, man, you know. It's like lots of people
[15:31] Speaker 2: in the art, including even some of the Everly family,
[15:34] Speaker 2: were saying, we're going to do our own book. All
[15:36] Speaker 2: these performers say, we're going to do our own book.
[15:38] Speaker 2: And they almost never do, because when they start it,
[15:40] Speaker 2: they discover how very difficult it is. It's long. It's hard.
[15:44] Speaker 2: It's a slog. It's detailed. And you have to have
[15:48] Speaker 2: a certain appetite for it, besides ability. Better at both. Exactly.
[15:54] Speaker 1: It's very difficult. A lot of people do not realize
[15:57] Speaker 1: how difficult it is to write about yourself or your family.
[16:02] Speaker 1: Most people tend to forget most of the integral things
[16:06] Speaker 1: that are very important to the story, where someone like
[16:09] Speaker 1: yourself will ask a lot of questions and dig a lot.
[16:13] Speaker 1: And that's where the deep dive comes in to get
[16:16] Speaker 1: all the information to put into the story that needs
[16:19] Speaker 1: to be told.
[16:20] Speaker 2: There's a fundamental difference between memoirs, which is what you
[16:24] Speaker 2: were just describing, and a biography. This is not a memoir.
[16:27] Speaker 2: Those can be great. That's a deliberately... personal memory of
[16:32] Speaker 2: somebody's experience with the other. My friend Tom Piazza is
[16:35] Speaker 2: about to have a book come out of the last
[16:37] Speaker 2: couple of years, his friendly relationship with John Prine and
[16:40] Speaker 2: traveling around with him. That's not a biography of John Prine,
[16:44] Speaker 2: although he was going to be doing that at one point.
[16:46] Speaker 2: That's a memoir of his specific experience. This book is
[16:50] Speaker 2: not my specific experience. Well, what are two points? I
[16:53] Speaker 2: briefly let her come in for a few paragraphs because
[16:56] Speaker 2: she was there. This is, as best I can get,
[16:59] Speaker 2: a knowledgeable, reasonably objective picture of what happened. You only
[17:03] Speaker 2: got two questions. What happened and how did that happen? Yeah.
[17:08] Speaker 1: So where did you get some of the information? Who
[17:11] Speaker 1: helped you in contributing to some of the facts that
[17:14] Speaker 1: were in the book?
[17:15] Speaker 2: There were people. I had a rule of the people
[17:17] Speaker 2: that are alive that knew them over the years. Think
[17:20] Speaker 2: about the years it was. Like I said, almost everybody's 83.
[17:23] Speaker 2: And if they're people that writers go to... They've been
[17:26] Speaker 2: dining out on those same Everly Brothers stories for up
[17:29] Speaker 2: to 50 years. They've told them over and over. And
[17:33] Speaker 2: in my experience, if they change much, it's because they're
[17:35] Speaker 2: starting to get embellished or somebody actually forgot something. So
[17:39] Speaker 2: I'd almost rather see what we have documented down in
[17:41] Speaker 2: print from years ago than to revisit that, who I
[17:45] Speaker 2: did look for. I wanted two people that I talked
[17:47] Speaker 2: to like that. Because, you know, you get to ask
[17:49] Speaker 2: the question nobody asked, which is an irritating thing when
[17:52] Speaker 2: you go to the documents. It might be a good interview,
[17:55] Speaker 2: and they get right up to the one you really
[17:56] Speaker 2: want to know, and then they don't ask it. I
[17:59] Speaker 2: can do that. But most of the people I interviewed
[18:01] Speaker 2: for the book, and there were still dozens, were people
[18:03] Speaker 2: who were not talked to about this before. The producer
[18:06] Speaker 2: of their TV show, the road manager for years, a couple,
[18:10] Speaker 2: you know, they had seven wives between the two of them.
[18:13] Speaker 2: I also spoke to some of the longtime girlfriends who
[18:16] Speaker 2: hadn't really been on the record before. And at this point,
[18:19] Speaker 2: we're willing to talk. So it's a wide variety. Engineers,
[18:22] Speaker 2: and on the other hand, there's a girlfriend. And I'm
[18:25] Speaker 2: deliberately looking for the things that I haven't known, the
[18:29] Speaker 2: stuff I need to fill in, what I try to
[18:31] Speaker 2: get when I talk to people like that. And it
[18:33] Speaker 2: was helpful. Lots of those were very fruitful discussions that
[18:36] Speaker 2: people can see in the book Blood Harmony.
[18:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so How long is the book?
[18:42] Speaker 2: 400 pages.
[18:44] Speaker 1: Wow, 400 pages. I can just imagine the content in that.
[18:49] Speaker 2: It covers the whole 80 years. It goes back to
[18:51] Speaker 2: their family. I mean, Don and Phil Everly were performing
[18:54] Speaker 2: with their dad in Chicago when they were like two
[18:57] Speaker 2: and five years old, two and four. I mean, so
[19:00] Speaker 2: it's like basically, you know, and they were professionally performing
[19:04] Speaker 2: from like 1945 to 2005. It's 60 years. So there's
[19:08] Speaker 2: a lot to kind of get a hold of there.
[19:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So in 400 pages, I mean, you really
[19:15] Speaker 1: did a real deep dive. And I'm sure you have
[19:18] Speaker 1: things in there that people have just completely forgotten about.
[19:22] Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. People have already been saying it.
[19:24] Speaker 2: Except for extremely involved fans who may have collected everything
[19:29] Speaker 2: they know, there's probably a high percentage of what's in
[19:32] Speaker 2: this book nobody's ever read before. They don't know and
[19:35] Speaker 2: have no idea. This is new stuff. As I say,
[19:38] Speaker 2: it's not been done.
[19:39] Speaker 1: That's just perfect. And when you can be the first
[19:43] Speaker 1: to bring out so many different things that have never,
[19:46] Speaker 1: ever been told and bring that to a new audience.
[19:50] Speaker 1: plus the older audience, that's a win.
[19:53] Speaker 2: Well, I hope so. I mean, if they feel that way,
[19:56] Speaker 2: they have to have an appetite for what I'm telling them.
[19:58] Speaker 2: This is an empathetic book. This is not a nasty tell-all,
[20:02] Speaker 2: you know, gossip book. It does have personal lives in it.
[20:05] Speaker 2: And there were dark chapters in those lives. And I
[20:08] Speaker 2: tell those straight like the joyous chapters in their lives.
[20:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. When you're trying
[20:14] Speaker 1: to be as objective as you personally can as a writer,
[20:18] Speaker 1: you have to tell the darker things along with the
[20:22] Speaker 1: lighter things So it all balances out so that it
[20:25] Speaker 1: shows that everything that you wrote is very objective.
[20:29] Speaker 2: There's kind of two rules doing this. One, remember what
[20:32] Speaker 2: I'm saying about the structure of the book, which is
[20:34] Speaker 2: about the making of the music and who they were
[20:37] Speaker 2: and how they interact. So whether the specific story is
[20:40] Speaker 2: dark or light, to the degree to which it affects
[20:43] Speaker 2: both of those, I'm interested in the personalize to the
[20:45] Speaker 2: degree that affected the music they made and what they
[20:48] Speaker 2: wrote and how they performed. So that's not a dark
[20:51] Speaker 2: or light question, is how significant and how much did
[20:54] Speaker 2: it matter? That matters to me. And then on top
[20:57] Speaker 2: of it, you know, how telling is it? A dark
[20:59] Speaker 2: story that's like nothing but scurrilous and you're just trying
[21:02] Speaker 2: to get clickbait on it is not telling. It's clickbait.
[21:06] Speaker 2: And a wonderful story about, you know, their happy birthday
[21:08] Speaker 2: party and the happy spoiling kids is not necessarily very
[21:12] Speaker 2: interesting either. The question is in each case is, you know,
[21:15] Speaker 2: how does this matter?
[21:16] Speaker 1: When you were exploring this, did you discover anything? perhaps
[21:21] Speaker 1: lesser known, that could resonate with people, helping them feel
[21:25] Speaker 1: more connected to their purpose, or what really, truly mattered
[21:31] Speaker 1: to them with what you wrote in the book?
[21:34] Speaker 2: Well, I certainly hope so. That's what the 400 pages are.
[21:37] Speaker 2: I mean, they may not know that Don Everly tried
[21:39] Speaker 2: to commit suicide twice. They may not also know that
[21:43] Speaker 2: The great influence they had on the entire generation of
[21:46] Speaker 2: stars that came after, whether that's Bob Dylan or the
[21:49] Speaker 2: Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones or Creedence, half the British invasion,
[21:53] Speaker 2: the Beatles. The Everly Brothers introduced a turn in music
[21:57] Speaker 2: which has affected us ever since. This is what matters here,
[22:01] Speaker 2: which is that they weren't rockabillies. They took inside out
[22:04] Speaker 2: what people had been doing. They maintained these close, sweet
[22:07] Speaker 2: country harmonies. which they were raised on. And they added
[22:10] Speaker 2: to those hard-driving R & B guitar slashing rhythms. That
[22:15] Speaker 2: would have a future. Nobody did that before them. And
[22:19] Speaker 2: you can immediately follow what happens next. Ask the Beatles. Musically,
[22:22] Speaker 2: that mattered.
[22:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. That was the whole premise of my question.
[22:27] Speaker 1: You just nailed it perfectly. I really like what you're
[22:31] Speaker 1: doing and what you've written because I love history of music.
[22:35] Speaker 1: And when you get into the history of people like
[22:37] Speaker 1: the Everly Brothers or whoever it may be, there are
[22:40] Speaker 1: just so many things that come out that you just
[22:43] Speaker 1: might not have realized. So I think this is great
[22:47] Speaker 1: that you wrote this book.
[22:48] Speaker 2: It's the whole point. If you looked at the book,
[22:50] Speaker 2: the very first sentences, the difference between the famed and
[22:53] Speaker 2: the rest of us is that so many people think
[22:56] Speaker 2: they know them.
[22:57] Speaker 1: That is a great quote.
[22:59] Speaker 2: That's where this book starts.
[23:03] Speaker 1: In closing, what would you like to tell the listeners
[23:06] Speaker 1: that they can expect that will give them an incentive
[23:09] Speaker 1: to go out there and buy your book about the
[23:11] Speaker 1: Everly Brothers?
[23:12] Speaker 2: I think you have every reason to be curious about
[23:15] Speaker 2: these two brothers and what they did. You may be already.
[23:18] Speaker 2: What I can tell you is when you dive in there,
[23:20] Speaker 2: you're going to feel like you know them more than
[23:22] Speaker 2: you ever knew them before. And you're going to get
[23:24] Speaker 2: a new sense of how they mattered. And a lot
[23:26] Speaker 2: of people already been telling me, whoa, I didn't know
[23:29] Speaker 2: about all those records. Some people are saying it takes
[23:31] Speaker 2: them a long time to read because they keep turning
[23:33] Speaker 2: to the records that come up to hear them. That'd
[23:35] Speaker 2: be good. Have fun with it.
[23:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been great. Great conversation, great information.
[23:45] Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
[23:48] Speaker 2: Thank you. And I appreciate when people ask about how
[23:51] Speaker 2: it happened and not just the subject. You get used
[23:56] Speaker 2: to people talking about the subject rather than the fact
[23:59] Speaker 2: that this is a written piece of work. So thank you.
[24:01] Speaker 1: Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for joining
[24:15] Speaker 1: us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has
[24:19] Speaker 1: been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media
[24:24] Speaker 1: at platomusic.com.

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