Phillip "Phil" Everly

 Phillip "Phil" Everly (January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014)

He, along with his brother Don, made up the famous music duo The Everly Brothers. When the brothers were still in high school, they gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like Chet Atkins, who began to groom them for national attention. They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit number 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit. Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the group's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada, and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s.

In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together, and would continue to perform periodically. The brothers joined Simon & Garfunkel in their "Old Friends" reunion tour of 2003 and 2004. As a tribute to the Everly Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel opened their own show and had the Everlys come out in the middle. In addition, Phil Everly sang "Sweet Little Corrina" with country singer Vince Gill on his 2006 album These Days. Phil Everly died at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, on January 3, 2014, age 74. The cause was lung disease, due to years of smoking. The singer had developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and relied on an oxygen tank the last years of his life. He is interred at Rose Hill Cemetery in Central City, KY.