The Everly Brothers

There’s something special that happens when siblings entwine their voices — when Don and Phil Everly exploded onto the ’50s rock ‘n’ roll scene their harmonies glowed with a bond only blood can bring. Together, the Everly Brothers inhabited the extremes of the emotional spectrum — they bid an achingly bittersweet farewell to hope and happiness amid the romantic ruins of “Bye Bye Love” and went blissfully drifting on a cloud of fantasy with the ethereal “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” taking both to the top of the charts. It wasn’t all dreamy dramas of the heart, though; the tough-talking, hip-shaking boogie “Gone, Gone, Gone” gave the Everlys one of their last hits in ’64 and still packs a punch more than four decades later, via Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s platinum pairing. Follow the Everlys’ journey from the fabulous ’50s to the psychedelic ’60s, in Next Steps.

By the late ’60s, when most of the Everly Brothers’ fellow first-wave rock ’n’ rollers had lost the plot, Phil and Don absorbed the spirit of the times without losing their old-school spark. The upstairs-downstairs bed-hopping soap opera “Lord of the Manor” and the fleeting-flame-of-love ballad “Empty Boxes” are both wrapped in the kind of heady folk-rock feel that stitched together the swirling dreams of an ever-expanding world. And pompadours meet paisley when eras collide on the Everlys’ ’68 remake of their ’50s hit “I Wonder If I Care As Much,” in which heaven-sent harmonies glide across a Hendrix-esque forest of fuzz guitar. Uncover the Everly Brothers’ country roots, in Deep Cuts.

The two-peas-in-a-pod sound of the Everly Brothers influenced virtually every close-harmony duo that came in their wake, but the brothers got it from soaking up the sounds of sibling country acts, like the Louvin Brothers. The Everlys pay tribute to their folk and country inspirations with a wah-wah-soaked update of Jimmie Rodgers’ Lone Star moan “T For Texas” and a sighing, stripped-down take on Hank Snow’s tragic tale “I’m Here To Get My Baby Out of Jail.” But let’s not forget that Phil and Don’s rockin’ side was revved up by R&B, a fact that comes into focus when they tear into Ray Charles’ stomper “Leave My Woman Alone,” adding a touch of the Bo Diddley beat along the way.

Sure, the Everly Brothers were the crucial link between the two-part twang of the Louvin Brothers and the hit-bound harmony groups of the ’60s, but they were more than that. They were true rock ’n’ roll romantics, with a sense of high drama worthy of Roy Orbison and the pipes to back it up. They plumbed the depths of romantic desolation one minute and rode sky-high on the rush of newfound love the next; they could just as easily turn on the waterworks with a weary-hearted weeper or stir up a storm with a rockabilly rave-up. With our Everly Brothers Essentials, we dove deep into the their decades-long discography to bring you the ultimate guide to an American musical treasure, from the hits that became part of history to the dazzling detours that dot the brothers’ rockin’ road map.