The Everly Brothers story will be a chapter in my book. Briefly, we were booked on a short tour to open for them. I had arranged for Meri to join us for this tour because the first night we'd met she had called out a request for "Wake Up Little Susie" from the audience. I wanted to have her hear that song from the horses' mouths.
So Meri and I arrived in our rental car to the first venue. There was plenty of parking space behind the theater and our little car didn't take up much room. The venue had three dressing rooms labeled "Kingston Trio", "Everly Brothers" and "Everly Brothers Band". We brought our instruments in and set up in the "Kingston Trio" room and began the process of tuning and warming up.
After a bit one of the crew came in and asked who owned the rental car out back, and we determined that it was our car they were asking about. I was told to go out and move it NOW - the Everly's had arrived and they need space to park the bus-
ES. So I went out to move the car and sure enough, there were two huge tour buses - one for Don and one for Phil - trying to find space to park. Even after I moved our little rental (a block away) it was pretty tight back there with those two busses crammed in.
I went back into the theater and there was a big upheaval going on. Turns out Don and Phil would not, could not share a dressing room and the signs had been hastily re-written to say "Don", "Phil" and "Everly Brothers Band + KT". So now we're crammed into a room with 5 other musicians in order to accommodate the brothers' hate for each other. As it turned out, it was a pretty cool thing, because we got to hang out with Buddy Emmons, Albert Lee and Jamie Hartford.
When we worked with other artists I often asked for a photo with them (I am a bit star-struck, after all). So I spoke with the Everlys' road manager, a fellow that I knew from Seattle, and he said the Everely's don't normally do "fan" photos but he'd ask them. Amazingly, they did agree to comply (maybe they felt guilty about usurping out parking place? - nah - not likely) and Meri and I got a group photo with them. We had to stand in the middle to avoid any eye gouging by the brothers.
Somehow I managed to get the photo printed and we got them to sign it. I found it interesting that Don and Phil held such contempt for each other and yet they put on a great show. There was no evidence on stage of their back-stage bickering.[img]
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