THE EVERLY BROTHERS - CATHY'S CLOWN

CATHY'S CLOWN

THE EVERLY BROTHERS

SONGWRITER: DONALD I EVERLY

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: A DATE WITH THE EVERLY BROTHERS

LABEL: WARNER BROS. RECORDS

GENRE: POP ROCK

YEAR: 1960

 

         The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly (February 1, 1937 – August 21, 2021) and Phillip "Phil" Everly (January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014), the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock.

       The duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio singing along with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. When the brothers were still in high school, they gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like Chet Atkins, who began to promote 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 Nº 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 a 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 continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later.

         The group was highly influential with the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers Nº 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 1986, and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Don was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019, earning the organization's first Iconic Riff Award for his distinctive rhythm guitar intro to the Everlys' massive 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie".

       A Date with the Everly Brothers is the fourth studio album by American singing duo the Everly Brothers, released in 1960. It peaked at Nº 9 on the Billboard Pop albums charts and reached Nº 3 in the UK.

          The song "Love Hurts" appears here for the first time. It would subsequently be covered by numerous other artists. Other than the "Cathy's Clown"/"Always It's You" single, all of the tracks on A Date with the Everly Brothers were recorded in just four sessions during July 1960.

        Writing for Allmusic, critic Richie Unterberger wrote of the album "Although the material is not on the killer level of 'It's Everly Time', there are some very fine songs on their second Warner LP."

       The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Don't want your love anymore

Don't want your kisses, that's for sure

I die each time I hear this sound

Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown

 

I gotta stand tall

You know a man can't crawl

When he knows you're tellin' lies and he hears 'em passing by

He's not a man at all

 

Don't want your love anymore

Don't want your kisses, that's for sure

I die each time I hear this sound

Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown

 

When you see me shed a tear

And you know that it's sincere

Don't you think it's kinda sad that you're treating me so bad

Or don't you even care?

 

Don't want your love anymore

Don't want your kisses, that's for sure

I die each time I hear this sound

Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown

 

That's Cathy's clown

That's Cathy's clown.