Everly Brothers – The Price Of Fame (7-CD box)

Through the first half of the ’60s, the period covered in this new Bear Family completist set, the hyper-talented brothers Everly endured waves of career and personal frustration, as this set’s title suggests. They generally struck teen pop audiences and radio programmers as artifacts of the ’50s — not a good thing in that would-be swingin’, then mop-top-crazed era.

In retrospect, it’s clear Phil and Don were never cut out to score with (in a later admirer’s phrase) “pure pop for now people.” There are inevitably strong, lingering American roots music sounds in everything they touch to this day — tones not much in pop favor just then. (They never did take a stab at the rooted, if differently oriented, commercial folk scare of the time.)

Even as highly influenced acts such as Peter & Gordon or Gerry & the Pacemakers were scoring with Everlys imitations, the brothers were still recording compelling, now semi-legendary sides for Warner Bros. that didn’t do much then — “Sleepless Nights”, “Love Hurts” and “The Price Of Love”, for three — and strikingly good British Invasion-style singles that got little notice (“You’re The One I Love”, “Love Is All I Need”).

There are also fascinatingly ahead-of-their time experiments here, though Don’s endlessly fussed-over “Nancy’s Minuet” only predicts “Windmills Of Your Mind”-style kitsch. “Man With Money”, an aggressive, dynamic original from 1965, should have been a hit, but nobody seemed to be listening.

The fledgling Warner label got some smash singles from the Everlys at first (“Cathy’s Clown”, “Walk Right Back”, the timeless “Cryin’ In The Rain”), but, presciently, label chieftains already saw their own futures in LPs. Theme album sessions are where most of the really good music here comes from.

There are missteps, twee turns on ancient sludge such as “My Mammy” and “The Sheik Of Araby”. But turn them loose on outright country and we get gorgeous, moving duets on “Born To Lose” and “Lonely Street” (as good as Patsy’s). There’s a nice Christmas album in here, too, and a strong Beatles-era early rock ‘n’ roll revival set with a “Susie Q” that John Fogerty must have heard, and a strong “Lonely Weekends”.

Don and Phil respond to the thankfully hardening ’65 sounds of electric Dylan or Manfred Mann folk-rock with the fine Beat & Soul LP. Leon Russell, James Burton, Glen Campbell and Jim Gordon are behind them, and they come up with the grittiest R&B vocals they’d ever put on wax to match — hard rockin’ on the likes of “Love Is Strange” and “Walkin’ The Dog”, movingly soulful on “People Get Ready”.

The American public’s appetite for rooted sounds in pop song — then as now — lurches back and forth. In the late ’60s, the Everlys would stage their first of several comebacks, with their classic album Roots helping to spark California country-rock. That period will be tracked on a follow-up box. But there’s plenty to enjoy and admire in this typically lavish Bear Family set from these in-between years.