The Everly Brothers: From Nashville To Hollywood CD Track Listing

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The Everly Brothers From Nashville To Hollywood (2005)
Originally Released October 11, 2005\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: N/A\n\nAmazon.com Product Description\nFrom Nashville To Hollywood contains tracks that are different versions of some songs previously released on The New Album in 1977 & on the Nice Guys and Susie Q albums of the 1980s. When Don & Phil recorded songs for Warner Bros., they kept recording the song until the last complete take was considered to be the best and was therefore chosen to be released as a single or as an album track. But, often, the other takes are quite interesting and different. Rhino. 2005. \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nAnother Disc For Die-Hard Everly Fans, December 4, 2005\nReviewer: Gerald J Reynolds (Stevenson Ranch, Ca United States)\nLots of stuff you can probably do without, lots of unissued tracks and alternate takes that aren't all that good. On the plus side, you'll find the cleanest, crispest versions of songs like "How Can I Meet Her", "Don't Ask Me To Be Friends" , "No One Can Make My Sunshine Smile" and "So It Always Will Be", most of which have been on the hissy side in previous packages. Note: Both versions of "Nancy's Minuet" on this CD are alternate takes; the original single version is included as a bonus track on the "Sing Great Country Hits/Gone Gone Gone" reissue CD. 4 1/2 stars for sound quality, 2 1/2 for content. \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nfrom http://www.spectropop.com/recommends/index2005.htm#EverlyBrothers\n(Frank M. Young, December 2005)\nThe Everly Brothers' decade with Warner Brothers Records (1960 to '70) was once the most neglected back catalog of the Spectropop era . . . . . Suddenly, we are overwhelmed with thoughtful, draconian accounts of this fertile Everly period. Aside from Euro-Warners' ongoing series of twofer reissues of the Bros' original WB LPs, each loaded with rare bonus tracks, and Collector's Choice's unimaginative single-disc sets, Bear Family in Germany has just birthed a seven-disc boxed set, "The Price Of Fame". In addition, Varese Vintage has swiftly coughed up "Too Good To Be True" and "Give Me A Future", two amazing discs of Everlys songwriting demos from the '50s to the '70s. \n\nFrom famine to feast, so suddenly: it's almost too much to take in! Let's concentrate on "From Nashville To Hollywood", the first in a series that will gather non-LP tracks, alternate versions, and outright-unissued material from the WB period. While not everything on this disc can be considered rare, its 25 tracks make a strong case for granting Don and Phil Everly belated studio genius status. Like Brian Wilson, Sloan-Barri, Barry-Greenwich and other performing/producing artists, the brothers Everly were de facto producers for most of their 1960s material. Alas, some of their most daring and complex material never saw the light of day.\n\nHad the Everlys not split acrimoniously with their controlling producer-publisher, Wesley Rose, in 1960, this privilege might never have been granted them. As Andrew Sandoval's fine liner notes reveal, it was Don's obsession with recording a Wall Of Sound-ish version of the Bing Crosby pop standard "Temptation" that got the boys kicked out of the Rose-garden. Wesley Rose simply didn't want the Everlys to record a piece of music his powerful publishing company, Acuff-Rose, didn't hold in its copyrights. The break with Rose cost the Everlys access to the song-writing services of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, Nashville's smartest cleffers of the early rock era. Nor, ironically, could Don and Phil easily call upon their own skill as writers. They were Acuff-Rose contract writers, and any song they wrote meant Wesley Rose still had some control over their destiny.\n\nTheir sessions now ping-ponged from Nashville to Hollywood. They snuck in a handful of songs under the nom de plume of "Jimmy Howard", belatedly hitched their wagon to the Screen Gems stable of writers, and even raided the hoariest of old standards and show-tunes in a desperate search for material. That's where we find the brothers Everly on this disc. It opens with the second of three versions of "Temptation". (The first and third are included as extras on the twofer disc "It's Everly Time/A Date With...", WB EU CD 9362 47869-2.) It's very similar to the released version -- a bit more passionate and yearning, a little less grand in scope. Don Everly clearly had a vision of a new sound for pop music. That the final version of "Temptation" was a Top 40 hit validated his vision, but Don (and Phil) were unable to commercially expand upon this recording's fascinating premise. \n\nThe Everlys next applied their alchemy to the Gerry Goffin/Jack Keller song "Little Hollywood Girl". We hear two distinctive approaches to this downbeat ditty. The first version, taped in Hollywood, is a bouncy mid-tempo piece with sprightly percussion and a girlie chorus. Sensing they hadn't quite nailed the song, the Everlys took it to Nashville for a remarkable re-make. After a lugubrious, classical-flavored piano intro, a sinuous, slow, brooding beat pulses through the song. The Everlys elongate the song's syllables in their trademark vocal harmony. It becomes a completely new song, filled with desperation and loneliness, where the Hollywood version was almost hopeful in its sound and feel. This second version of "Little Hollywood Girl" is truly a lost gem of early '60s pop. Alas, it would never see the light of day. (The Crickets would issue a Bobby Vee-ish version of the tune later in 1962.) \n\nBy that time, Don was newly obsessed with a Henry Mancini-inspired piece from his own hand -- "Nancy's Minuet". This striking, eerie song was a dark sequel to "Cathy's Clown", their 1960 smash. Slicing tremolo guitar and harsh harpsichord frames this haunting piece of pop melancholy. Not content with this seemingly fine version, the Everlys played with the arrangement, and literally turned the song inside out for a curious alternate version. The song's lyrics are pruned down, and the tempo slowed down to a somnambulistic drag, and the brothers' vocals sound sluggish. They quite correctly decided to try the song once again, and the results were an Everly masterpiece. The youthful yearning, the hints of romantic obsession, and the melancholy of their entire career were summed up in two minutes and three seconds. "Nancy's Minuet" was issued on the B-side of a 1963 single, to no acclaim whatsoever. It must have been frustrating to the Everlys to spend so much time on these studio experiments, which were costing somebody a lot of money, and have the results ignored by the public and their peers. (This final version is heard as a bonus cut on the twofer "Sing Great Country Hits/Gone Gone Gone", WB EU 5046 75830-2.)\n\nThese three stellar experiments, in their many forms, frame a grab bag of alternate takes, non-hit singles, and unissued material. There is one bona-fide hit here: "How Can I Meet Her", another Goffin-Keller piece that is a virtual template of the Merseybeat sound, harmonicas and all. While it's about as rare as snowfall in Siberia, it fits the context of the CD's theme. \n\nGoffin-King fanatics will be pleased by the inclusion of four songs from 1962 Everly sessions. "Nice Guy" and "What About Me", while not among their strongest material, are appealing confections, much more on the country side than their other work from this period. Better, both as song and performance, is their version of "I Can't Say Goodbye To You", beautifully remastered and rescued from its gutless mix on the 1977 rarities disc "The New Album". The Everlys also had first crack at "Chains", which they taped several months before the Cookies' Top 20 hit version. Twanging electric guitars, crisp drums and clever use of tambourine (to simulate the song's subject), topped with the Everlys' driving harmony vocals, give to this original version of "Chains" the feeling of a sure-fire hit. Yet they didn't release it.\n\nA 1962 pairing that was released, but barely scraped the Top 50, was more subtly innovative. "Don't Ask Me To Be Friends"/"No One Can Make My Sunshine Smile" showed a growing maturity in the Everly sound, and in the brothers' vocal performances. These two Goffin-Keller songs were solid, melancholy pop material, and the Everlys took completely different approaches with each. To the almost painful mood of the topside, sprightly acoustic guitars, a deep, brooding rhythm track and dramatic strings frame Don and Phil's mid-range, close harmonies movingly. It's an emotionally complex lyric for '62, and the Everlys sell it with grace and heart. On the B-side, the catchy-eerie "Sunshine" keeps the mandolin-like acoustics, adds Nashville slip-note piano and offers one of the best rhythm tracks in Spectropop history. Don and Phil bring something special to a song that, in other hands, might just seem a flyweight piece. An alternate take, recorded one week before the released version, offers a bar mitzvah sax section and tremeloed electric guitar. It is, quite honestly, a big mess. There's also one important chord change missing. It's surprising how different the song is without that one little touch.\n\nWe hear dress rehearsal and final version of the A-side to "Nancy's Minuet", Arthur Altman's stately "(So It Was...So It Is) So It Always Will Be". As with "Little Hollywood Girl", the two takes here are completely different. The first version has a crawling, deep feeling, with almost inaudible background noodling on an electric organ. Those guitars from "Sunshine" are back for the final draft. This version is airy, dreamy and intensely romantic, with a pop-tango tempo to the song's bridge and a beautiful close-harmony coda.\n\nTwo of my obscure Everly faves are here: Sonny Curtis' sweet, so-sad "Whatever Happened To Judy?" and Jim Gordon's intense, doomy, minor-keyed "I'm Afraid". The latter, one of the darkest songs in the Everly catalog, is also heard via an alternate take with brooding, ultra-tremelo guitar, a James Bond-ish hook, and clams galore, as the musicians feel their way through the ad-hoc arrangement. Two takes of Roger Miller's witty "Burma Shave" offer a rare glimpse of the Everlys in the studio, calling the shots. An alternate version skids to a halt, 15 seconds in: an Everly complains, "That's too slow," and demonstrates the desired tempo by smacking the back of his hands together. The Nashville cats catch on quickly, and switch from trot to gallop for a galvanizing shot of pioneering country-rock. To hear the released versions alongside the alternates, throughout this disc, illustrates dramatically how much the Everlys were using the recording studio as a sonic laboratory. They weren't afraid to explore diverse ideas -- to basically spend a lot of time (and tape) playing with songs, futzing with instruments and tempos, coming up with fascinating ideas and discarding them as easily as they came.\n\n"From Nashville To Hollywood" makes a convincing bid for the Everly Brothers as more than mere performers, or songwriters. Don and Phil were aware that the recording studio was, itself, an instrument, and that songs were pliable, not cast in stone, and subject to dramatic re-thinkings at a moment's notice. Without much fanfare, their studio experimentation has been overlooked. Had some of these cuts been issued, back in the day, they might have changed the faltering fortunes of these immensely talented siblings. I hope it helps them out in 2005.\n\nHalf.com N/A
This rock cd contains 25 tracks and runs 56min 46sec.
Freedb: 550d4c19
Buy: from Amazon.com

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