18. Don Everly and Phil Everly
Like the Wrights, the Everlys were brothers, and like the aviation pioneers, their life’s work is forever entwined with each other. The Everly Brothers were one of pop music’s seminal acts. They were still in their teens when they became international stars, Don was 19, younger brother Phil was 17 years of age. Their musical career was based on harmony, the tight vocal pairings the brothers achieved in recordings and reproduced live on stage. But the harmony was limited to their music. Don and Phil Everly spent most of their career as performers together loathing each other.
Phil once tried to make light of their mutual contempt by referring to their only having one argument, though it had lasted for 25 years. In 1973 a performance was interrupted by an onstage argument, triggered by Don’s having shown up to the performance drunk. After a ten-year hiatus from each other, they reunited in 1984 only to find that they still couldn’t stand each other, refusing to appear at promotional events and interviews together. Phil Everly died in 2014. Two years later Don Everly told an interviewer that he kept some of his brother’s ashes in his home, habitually bidding them “good morning” whenever he was there.
