Fact #63514
When:
Short story:
When The Everly Brothers appear at The John Wayne Theatre, Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, California, USA, Don Everly is so drunk on tequila that he repeatedly forgets the lyrics he is supposed to sing. Furious, Phil Everly smashes his guitar and storms off stage. Don plays the final set of the day alone. The duo breaks up immediately after.Full article:
Crystal Zevon : Don and Phil were breaking up but they had contracted to play a three night gig at Knott's Berry Park. Warren (keyboardist for The Everly Brothers) wanted me to be there for the Everly Brothers' last performance.
It was July 14th 1973. We arrived and Don was drinking heavily. Phil and Patricia were locked in their dressing room., so after going on a few rides, we hung out with Don, mostly watching him drink and hold court. There was a star-studded crowd including George Segal, whom Warren and I adored. I watched the show from the side curtains with Karen. I'd seen Don perform with the flu and a temperature of 103 degrees. I'd never heard him hit a sour note or be anything short of professional in front of an audience. But this night, he walked onstage dead drunk. He was stumbling and off-key and I remember Phil trying to re-start songs several times. It was embarrassing.
The fourth or fifth song they did was Wake Up, Little Susie, and Don was forgetting people's names and insulting the audience and Phil. Finally, Phil stormed off stage. he smashed his Gibson guitar and said, "I quit". It was stunning. A few minutes later, we were standing in the hallway between Don and Phil's dressing rooms when Phil and Patricia stormed out. Patricia looked right at me with wide eyes, but Phil just marched dead ahead. He didn't speak to anybody but it was clear he wasn't coming back.
Don said he could do it alone, and the band agreed to back him up. Then we all went over to Barry and Marsha Farrell's house. The band was jamming. Harrison Ford was there. George Segal drove to his house in Toping Canyon to get his banjo so he could play with everybody. It was Hollywood heaven. By the end of the night, Warren and I had practically forgotten the tragic end of the Everly Brothers.
(Source : I'll Sleep When I'm Dead : The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, keyboardist, by his ex-wife Crystal Zevon)
Ron Coleman (bass player) : I was hanging out in the dressing room with Don and everything seemed like it was going to go all right but I guess the stuff was hitting him a little bit harder than what I thought.
Saturday night was going to be the last night of the Everly Brothers, and we all had a little bit to drink, so we went out and when I hit the stage, I knew I had a problem, but I had my amp to lean on and Don didn't have an amp to lean on. During the first song there was a lot of space where Phil was left doing his harmony, Don didn't get the words out.
Bill Hollingshead (promoter) : When he'd had a couple of drinks, he'd sing a quarter note flat. Of course, with their tight harmony, Phil was trying to do what he could but how can you sing harmony with somebody who is singing out of tune?
Jason Everly (son of Phil Everly) : The show was not going well. They were skipping songs, and you were just realising something's wrong, something's different. Dad didn't seem himself and nothing seemed right.
Bill Hollingshead : About ten minutes into the show, people started walking out.
Ron Coleman : It was about halfway through the third song, Don's voice just quit. Phil just got up on his tip-toes and brought the J-200 down ... and that guitar just exploded and I don't think there was any piece left that was longer than six inches
Bill Hollingshead : ...and threw it on the stage, this $1200 Everly Brothers Gibson guitar and he came by me and he said, "I'm really sorry, Bill, I have to go. I can't go back onstage with that man again.
Don Everly : I was half in the bag that evening - the only time I've ever been drunk on stage in my life. I knew it was the last night, and on the way out I drank some tequila, drank some champagne - started celebrating the demise. It was really a funeral. People thought that night was just some brouhaha between Phil and me. They didn't realise we had been working our buns off for years. We had never been anywhere without working, had never known any freedom. We were just strapped together like a pair of horses. It's funny - the press hadn't paid any attention to us in ten years, but they jumped on that. It was one of the saddest days of my life.
(Source : interview with Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone, 1986)
Jason Everly : I remember driving home with dad and he was just mad and angry and upset about it, but I didn't have remotely have any comprehension as to what it meant.
Phil Everly : Donald suggested we not speak for a couple of years, and I took him at his word. It was something he had to want to start again.
(Source " https://people.com/archive/don-and-phil-everly-end-a-discordant-decade-apart-to-harmonize-sweetly-again-vol-21-no-3/)
Don Everly : I think our fights weren't so much to do with each other as the situation we found ourselves in. . . . We'd been working together since we were kids, and that was our first opportunity to really get out on our own. I mean, we went from being a family act with Mom and Dad to being a duet with each other and we didn't have any break at all."
(Source : from the Everly Brothers' biography Walk Right Back.)
Phil Everly : I was never content to think of myself as merely half of something - always as an individual. The main reason we went our separate ways in 1973 was that we figured we had done all we could together. It was time to strike out on our own and see what we had to offer as individuals.
(Source : Early Rockers by Howard Elson, 1982)
Don Everly : There seemed no reason to keep in touch with my brother. I think now that we had a soft of suffocating relationship. We did everything together and lived in each other's pockets. We needed a fresh approach. I had travelled the world yet seen nothing of it. It was all work, and moving from place to place.
(Source : Early Rockers by Howard Elson, 1982)
Phil Everly : When Donald and I split up, I did basically nothing for the next ten years. During that period, people would ask me what was wrong with me, and I'd say I was suffering from an acute case of stupidity. You get at odds, and Donald and I were both very opinionated.
It was nothing you could really lay you finger on. Frayed nerves, maybe. Frayed times, divorces - regular life struggles. So we quit, got off the tread-mill, put it all aside.
During our time apart there were always people around trying to get us back together. But it was up to us to settle it, or not.
When Dad got sick, we talked. We hadn't talked for years, maybe five or six years, until we met at the hospital, and then again at Dad's funeral. And when we did talk, we never talked like anything was wrong. We never snarled at each other.
And then Donald finally gave me a call. You know, when you get older, you start thinking you might die. And we didn't want to end things like that. It wouldn't have been right.
For what it's worth, I believe if they ever had a singing Olympics, Donald and I would get Top 3, if not win some gold. If you put us all together and let us have a sing-off, we could hold our own with anybody from any era. That maybe sounds a little prideful, but it's what I believe.
Of course, if I had it all to do over again, if I had known Donald and I were going to last, I would have laughed in their faces and probably had a better time.
(Source : not known)
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It was July 14th 1973. We arrived and Don was drinking heavily. Phil and Patricia were locked in their dressing room., so after going on a few rides, we hung out with Don, mostly watching him drink and hold court. There was a star-studded crowd including George Segal, whom Warren and I adored. I watched the show from the side curtains with Karen. I'd seen Don perform with the flu and a temperature of 103 degrees. I'd never heard him hit a sour note or be anything short of professional in front of an audience. But this night, he walked onstage dead drunk. He was stumbling and off-key and I remember Phil trying to re-start songs several times. It was embarrassing.
The fourth or fifth song they did was Wake Up, Little Susie, and Don was forgetting people's names and insulting the audience and Phil. Finally, Phil stormed off stage. he smashed his Gibson guitar and said, "I quit". It was stunning. A few minutes later, we were standing in the hallway between Don and Phil's dressing rooms when Phil and Patricia stormed out. Patricia looked right at me with wide eyes, but Phil just marched dead ahead. He didn't speak to anybody but it was clear he wasn't coming back.
Don said he could do it alone, and the band agreed to back him up. Then we all went over to Barry and Marsha Farrell's house. The band was jamming. Harrison Ford was there. George Segal drove to his house in Toping Canyon to get his banjo so he could play with everybody. It was Hollywood heaven. By the end of the night, Warren and I had practically forgotten the tragic end of the Everly Brothers.
(Source : I'll Sleep When I'm Dead : The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, keyboardist, by his ex-wife Crystal Zevon)
Ron Coleman (bass player) : I was hanging out in the dressing room with Don and everything seemed like it was going to go all right but I guess the stuff was hitting him a little bit harder than what I thought.
Saturday night was going to be the last night of the Everly Brothers, and we all had a little bit to drink, so we went out and when I hit the stage, I knew I had a problem, but I had my amp to lean on and Don didn't have an amp to lean on. During the first song there was a lot of space where Phil was left doing his harmony, Don didn't get the words out.
Bill Hollingshead (promoter) : When he'd had a couple of drinks, he'd sing a quarter note flat. Of course, with their tight harmony, Phil was trying to do what he could but how can you sing harmony with somebody who is singing out of tune?
Jason Everly (son of Phil Everly) : The show was not going well. They were skipping songs, and you were just realising something's wrong, something's different. Dad didn't seem himself and nothing seemed right.
Bill Hollingshead : About ten minutes into the show, people started walking out.
Ron Coleman : It was about halfway through the third song, Don's voice just quit. Phil just got up on his tip-toes and brought the J-200 down ... and that guitar just exploded and I don't think there was any piece left that was longer than six inches
Bill Hollingshead : ...and threw it on the stage, this $1200 Everly Brothers Gibson guitar and he came by me and he said, "I'm really sorry, Bill, I have to go. I can't go back onstage with that man again.
Don Everly : I was half in the bag that evening - the only time I've ever been drunk on stage in my life. I knew it was the last night, and on the way out I drank some tequila, drank some champagne - started celebrating the demise. It was really a funeral. People thought that night was just some brouhaha between Phil and me. They didn't realise we had been working our buns off for years. We had never been anywhere without working, had never known any freedom. We were just strapped together like a pair of horses. It's funny - the press hadn't paid any attention to us in ten years, but they jumped on that. It was one of the saddest days of my life.
(Source : interview with Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone, 1986)
Jason Everly : I remember driving home with dad and he was just mad and angry and upset about it, but I didn't have remotely have any comprehension as to what it meant.
Phil Everly : Donald suggested we not speak for a couple of years, and I took him at his word. It was something he had to want to start again.
(Source " https://people.com/archive/don-and-phil-everly-end-a-discordant-decade-apart-to-harmonize-sweetly-again-vol-21-no-3/)
Don Everly : I think our fights weren't so much to do with each other as the situation we found ourselves in. . . . We'd been working together since we were kids, and that was our first opportunity to really get out on our own. I mean, we went from being a family act with Mom and Dad to being a duet with each other and we didn't have any break at all."
(Source : from the Everly Brothers' biography Walk Right Back.)
Phil Everly : I was never content to think of myself as merely half of something - always as an individual. The main reason we went our separate ways in 1973 was that we figured we had done all we could together. It was time to strike out on our own and see what we had to offer as individuals.
(Source : Early Rockers by Howard Elson, 1982)
Don Everly : There seemed no reason to keep in touch with my brother. I think now that we had a soft of suffocating relationship. We did everything together and lived in each other's pockets. We needed a fresh approach. I had travelled the world yet seen nothing of it. It was all work, and moving from place to place.
(Source : Early Rockers by Howard Elson, 1982)
Phil Everly : When Donald and I split up, I did basically nothing for the next ten years. During that period, people would ask me what was wrong with me, and I'd say I was suffering from an acute case of stupidity. You get at odds, and Donald and I were both very opinionated.
It was nothing you could really lay you finger on. Frayed nerves, maybe. Frayed times, divorces - regular life struggles. So we quit, got off the tread-mill, put it all aside.
During our time apart there were always people around trying to get us back together. But it was up to us to settle it, or not.
When Dad got sick, we talked. We hadn't talked for years, maybe five or six years, until we met at the hospital, and then again at Dad's funeral. And when we did talk, we never talked like anything was wrong. We never snarled at each other.
And then Donald finally gave me a call. You know, when you get older, you start thinking you might die. And we didn't want to end things like that. It wouldn't have been right.
For what it's worth, I believe if they ever had a singing Olympics, Donald and I would get Top 3, if not win some gold. If you put us all together and let us have a sing-off, we could hold our own with anybody from any era. That maybe sounds a little prideful, but it's what I believe.
Of course, if I had it all to do over again, if I had known Donald and I were going to last, I would have laughed in their faces and probably had a better time.
(Source : not known)