ntriguing confection have we here? Two leading figures of 21st-century entertainment revisit in full an almost forgotten album by an almost forgotten duo from an almost forgotten world.
When Phil and Don Everly released Songs Our Father Taught Us in 1958, they were a happening act in the rapidly emerging rock’n’roll world. Although raised in the country music tradition, they were riding high in the pop charts with their signature harmonies on classic crossover songs such as Wake
Up Little Susie and Bye Bye Love. Yet the album harked back to a different time, with its dark mix of traditional murder ballads and lachrymose country standards.
Seen from this juncture, these age-old songs of poverty and pain, murder and deceit, songs with mystery and meaning such as Barbara Allen and Down in
the Willow Garden, could be a reaction to what US president Dwight Eisenhower called “an age of danger”. The Cold War was a source of anger and anxiety, and Mad Men’s modern world was undermining traditional values. (Story continues after the jump).