The Everly Brothers

Go and look up The Everly Brothers on Google, and they might appear, to the untrained eye at least, to be completely antiquated; their old-fashioned dress sense and slick quiffs in black and white photographs very much appear to be from a bygone era, whilst their country-tinged brand of rock and roll certainly isn’t one that seems commercially viable today, even if the group did sell millions of records over the past half-century or so. The truth, though, is that their legacy speaks for itself; the way in which they developed close harmony singing remains a major feature of pop and rock music today, and their impressive history of award-winning - including being amongst the first ten acts to be inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 1986 and winning a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 - speaks for itself. They continued to play live, running through their huge back catalogue and strumming those iconic steel-strung guitars, right up until around 2005; one of their final jaunts saw them open for Simon and Garfunkel in the U.S. The passing of Phil Everly earlier this year brought the band to an end, but their legacy is by no means in question; they won’t be easily forgotten.