The Everly Brothers' Best

iTunes Review

This Everly Brothers compilation came out in 1959 and covers the early hits they recorded for Cadence Records. Short in length (no tune plays over the 2:25 mark), The Everly Brothers’ Best makes for the ultimate introduction to the songs that made Don and Phil Everly legends in both the country and rock ‘n’ roll realms. It opens with 1957’s “Bye Bye Love” where you can immediately hear the magical close-harmonies that could only come from siblings. Audiophiles will dig that these recordings were revived from the original two-inch-wide studio tapes, and not the half-inch secondary masters — so songs like the intimate “I Wonder If I Care As Much” and the rockabilly tinged “Bird Dog” sound like they’re being performed right in front of you. And the production was engineered with attention paid to the advent of stereophonic sound (two-channel mixing surfaced in 1958), so if you’re listening to these songs through earbuds you can really hear the hard pans on each side. Along with the pristine recording quality you also get to hear what Nashville’s A-list session musicians sounded like in the ‘50s.