Foreverly is Green Day honcho Billie Joe Armstrong and contempo pop-jazz vocalist Norah Jones’ tipping of the hat to The Everly Brothers. Instead of cherry-picking a handful of nuggets from that duo’s extensive oeuvre, they decided to focus upon the Brothers’ quite prescient second LP, 1958’s outstanding but highly individual Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. It’s a risky maneuver to be sure, but in the end the plusses outweigh the minuses, and while far from amazing, it stands as more than just a thoughtful gesture.
Recently Colin Meloy, well-known indie rocker cherished as a novelist by lit majors and McSweeney’s-subscribers the globe over, George MacDonald Fraser-advocate, and most importantly, the singer for the Portland Oregon outfit The Decemberists, issued the latest in his string of tour-only single-artist cover-song CDs, with the act under scrutiny on this occasion being none other than The Kinks.
That’s certainly a very nice choice, but when Meloy elaborated upon how he came to his decision, specifically by pulling five records from his shelf at random with the subject of the 5-song EP chosen from that severely limited selection, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment over the vocalist’s stated nixing of Don Everly.
But the letdown was indeed a brief one, for it’s not like Don’s been banished to a corner of neglect to starve for contemporary recognition. Far from it actually, since The Everly Brothers, the duo he comprised with his younger sibling Phil, produced some of the most durable hits of the early rock ‘n’ roll era.
They were also one of the crucial diversifiers in that whole scenario, with their obvious country background acting as a necessary counterweight to the period’s rampant R&B worship. The Everly’s excellence at close-harmony vocalizing, a tandem effort clearly inspired by and yet distinct from the work of brotherly country duos like the Delmores and the Louvins, was a breed apart from the wild hick abandon of rockabilly, at once far more versatile and pop savvy.
This resulted in the Brothers scoring hits well into the early ‘60s, thriving long after the majority of their early R&R cohorts had fallen on career hard times. They also proved influential on the British Invasion and were shapers of country-rock’s early motions, with the duo continuing to release interesting, and in a few cases very important, albums at a point where most of those first generation rockers had either retired from the game or consigned themselves to expressions of pure nostalgia.
Due to their sheer perseverance and abundance of talent, there’s been no shortage of esteem directed toward The Everly Brothers over the years, with that fandom leading right up to the present. Earlier in 2013, Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables teamed up with her frequent collaborator Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham) to issue the very strong What the Brothers Sang, an LP that basically served as a loose and warm doffing of the cap to Don and Phil as it put a casually unique stamp onto material sourced from the Everly’s discography.
And now late in the year, Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones bring us another tribute. Even though roughly nine months separate the release of What the Brothers Sang and the arrival of Foreverly, some might be thinking the proximity between the two LPs is still too close to escape falling into the redundant.
However, due to the aforementioned creative longevity of The Everly Brothers, this is not the case. Specifically, the McCarthy/Oldham disc largely focuses upon songs of a later ‘60s vintage, with four of the entries credited to Don and the rest derived either from high-profile names like Kris Kristofferson and John Denver or teams like Goffin/King and the Everly’s close associates Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. So as a tribute, What the Brothers Sang is also a surprisingly wide-ranging affair.
But Foreverly is immediately noted for its strictness in ambition. In covering The Everly Brothers’ brilliant second long-player, Armstrong and Jones’ acknowledgement of respect is intrinsically linked to its boldness of conception, and the dangers of failure are amplified considerably. Yes, it’s very likely that most of the folks lining up to purchase Foreverly will hold little or no familiarity with Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, but I also can’t help but assume that for a large number of listeners, some form of side-by-side comparison will eventually be in the cards.
No doubt some young ears will beg to differ, but to my seasoned audio-canals the chances of Armstrong and Jones equaling the quality, or for that matter, the sheer unusualness of Songs Our Daddy Taught Us was basically nil, since in terms of where the Everly’s popularity resided circa-’58, the album is simply one of pop music’s most rewarding out-of-nowhere digressions.
It’s true that its individuality has mostly come in retrospect, with the tunes Ike Everly passed down to his sons increasing in cultural value alongside the growing stature of Don and Phil as something much more than just country-leaning early rock ‘n’ rollers. Songs Our Daddy Taught Us has been described as rock’s first “roots” album, made just three years after the form erupted, and the document was truly decades ahead of its time.
If R&R’s (and the Everly’s) popularity was at a peak in ‘58, thankfully the stakes were also low enough that the record’s moderate sales did nothing to derail their early success. And for quite a few, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us remains the duo’s finest moment. While I don’t fall into their number, considering their ample flow of first-rate singles as their apex, I can surely comprehend that judgment.
And many of those partisans are doubtlessly stewing in some potent juices over a pop-punk singer/guitarist and pop-jazz chanteuse daring to soil the undying majesty of their well-loved LP. But with all due respect to intensity of fandom, that’s a viewpoint I don’t share, mainly because Foreverly, if lacking in any transcendent moments, does contain some enjoyable returns as it brandishes a consistently palpable sincerity.
Yes, sincerity, the very stuff tribute albums are made of. But trib offerings don’t succeed on genuineness alone, and without something more, those exercises become debatable and even specious. The manner in which Armstrong and Jones alter the originals is perhaps surprising and at times underwhelming, but on the other hand it makes good sense. Frankly, it offers a practical reason for the record’s existence. And just as bluntly, it’s not likely they could match and even more so maintain the spare beauty of the source’s two voices and accompanying acoustic guitars.
It’s important to note that the Brothers were also interpreting these songs and playing to their own strengths, so Foreverly’s act of alteration jives with the prior disc’s mode of operation pretty dang well. With this said, “Roving Gambler” is reasonably similar to Don and Phil’s version in structure, but it substitutes vocal verve for gentleness and adds drums and bluesy harmonica to the equation.
There’s maybe too much harp blowing, but its detraction is minor next to the pair’s understanding of the song’s rudiments, and it scores as a solid opener. From there, the duo makes what some will consider a grave misstep in altering the track-sequence of the original. Instead of “Down in the Willow Garden,” Armstrong and Jones proceed directly into “Long Time Gone.”
To my ear, the change in order isn’t injurious to the proceedings, and given that Foreverly’s sun-baked and steel-guitar drenched treatment of “…Willow Garden” is a minute-and-a-half longer in duration, the adjustment seems wise on their part. “Long Time Gone” appears in sprightly full band mode, and while nowhere near the level of the splendid take waxed by Lois Maffeo on a ‘92 K Records’ 45, it also doesn’t falter and even holds a tidy little guitar solo that loiters in the zone betwixt James Burton and Duane Eddy.
“Lightning Express” also gets complete ensemble support, at first registering like an early ‘60s pop-country confection, but the biggest disparity comes through the duo’s rise in overt emotionalism in the choruses, which is noticeably different from the more subtle (and more purely intense) approach of the Brothers.
What Armstrong and Jones conjure is serviceable and occasionally more than that, but the original is consistently sublime, and this divergence essentially shapes Foreverly as a likeable but problematic LP, while Songs Our Daddy Taught Us endures as a top-to-bottom classic. Like many a tribute slab, Foreverly survives on its goodwill, and the spirit of the endeavor is what ultimately salvages their reading of “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.”
For without the mingling of Armstrong and Jones’ engaged voices, it’s essentially just too raucous and overly busy instrumentally. Fleshed-out with faux-barrelhouse piano, the ol’ 88s are even awarded with a solo spot, an additive that while admittedly well-executed is also notably missing in the foundation tune and on Songs Our Daddy Taught Us as a whole. And yet the singing, which kinda registers like mainstream folkies attempting to replicate the aura of ‘60s mixed-gender pop-country duos, rescues it from the snares of the mediocre.
While Jones is clearly the more vocally talented of the two, she and Armstrong do sound good together, and the foregrounding of their abilities makes “Down in the Willow Garden” one of the stronger moments here. It sets the stage for the disc’s standout cut, a version of “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?” that stays close to the gorgeous minimalism of Don and Phil and emphasizes that Armstrong held a real understanding of what songs could shoulder the burden of alteration and what needed to be left alone.
From there, “Oh So Many Years” is supped-up and rocked out, though the change stands up better than does “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.” Following this is a somewhat questionable take of “Barbara Allen” that swaps out the Everly’s uncanny blend of intensity and fragility for the fiddle-drenched sound of Americana.
This is understandable in part; even though “Barbara Allen” is a warhorse of a traditional tune that can be adequately sung by just about any human with functioning pipes and the requisite desire, Armstrong also doesn’t possess the kind of throat needed to really elevate it. So the surroundings compensate for a shortcoming, but unfortunately the whole misses timelessness and heads straight for cliché. Thankfully, Jones’ vocal support does add a little something to the atmosphere.
Improving things is “Rockin’ Alone (In an Old Rockin’ Chair),” which subs piano and light rhythm for acoustic guitar but retains the song’s sadness without overstepping into the maudlin. After that, Jones takes the lead for “I’m Here to Get My Baby out of Jail,” with her forceful delivery once again attended by an ebb and flow of rustic instrumentation; while less ordinary than on “Barbara Allen,” the contribution is still overdone and towards the end even gets a bit melodramatic.
However, the music well-serves both a fine and generally straight run-through of “Kentucky” and the emotional edginess of closer “Put My Little Shoes Away,” with the pair of cuts increasing the LP’s usefulness in the home stretch. Foreverly still falls significantly short of the greatness that it’s paying homage to, but again, the amiability does assist in bandaging the shortcomings.
And the goodness that’s sprinkled throughout the record will most certainly hip a bountiful number of fresh ears to the rewards of The Everly Brothers. That wasn’t the entire point, but it was definitely a large part of Foreverly’s raison d’être, and under those terms the whole thing can be considered as a minor release with an unusually high level of success.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B-
