Keep It In The Family

It's been a while since we've had to use the weekly musical interlude as the "Dead Musician" post but I guess that just means we were over-due and this week we have a big one. Just after the new year musician Phil Everly died. As you probably guessed from the last name, he made up one half of the famous singing due the Everly Brothers and, along with his brother Don, Phil Everly was one of the most influential musicians in history. Every musical act that followed them - from The Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel - have claimed to have tried to sing like the Everly Brothers but their ability to harmonize is the kind of thing which you just can't manufacture and only comes from being in the same family. However, despite the fact that they were family, the Everly Brothers were not immune to the typical squabbles which come from being on tour with each other day after day and year after year. (Little know rule of music for any band which has been together for more than five years - you have to spend at least one year of your time as a band hating one another.) According to accounts which have come out in the last few days the two brothers would fight constantly and experimented with drugs which would make the conflicts even worse. This culminated with Phil quitting in the middle of a show and walking off stage, after which he and his brother went for almost a decade without speaking to one another, only saying a few words at their father's funeral. It is the kind of story that almost couldn't happen today because the tabloids would be all over it but at the same time I feel like it is probably one of the most tame stories from that era. Frankly, that is why I am kind of surprised we don't see more groups like the Everly Brothers today.

I was thinking about it and looking around the musical landscape I couldn't help but notice we are currently devoid of musical acts which are made up of siblings. Sure, there are the occasional groups like Hanson and the Jonas Brothers but for the most part the popular musical groups are just a collection of strangers, brought together by some random talent agency who does this sort of thing all the time. It is not like there haven't been ample opportunities within families that have produced multiple solo artists. For example, why wasn't Mark Wahlberg a member of New Kids on the Block or Solange Knowles in Destiny's Child? I'm left wondering if this is on purpose as parents saw what happened to groups like the Everly Brothers and told themselves that that wasn't going to happen in their family. Personally, I think those fears are unfounded. I mean, sure, they would probably still get into the same arguments that any musical group would get into during a long tour but in this era of pimped-out tour buses, huge dressing rooms and private planes, how mad can any musician really get? I feel like half the problem for bands like the Everly Brothers is that they were mostly mad about their travelling conditions and figured they shouldn't take it out on some random roadie, so instead they turned on each other, assuming it would be easier to smooth things over with family. (Evidently they got that one wrong.) So, the blow-ups with modern bands are probably not as bad as they were back then but the money to be made from a family musical act is much greater. Sure, putting your kids out on the road like that wouldn't make you parent of the year material but I would say those chances ended when you allowed your kids to become musicians in the first place.