Barry Mazor: Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Legacy

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Almost Live… Nashville with Tony Mantor

Guest: Barry Mazor – "Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Legacy"

Release Date: August 20, 2025
Duration: ~24 minutes

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Tony Mantor welcomes acclaimed music journalist and author Barry Mazor to discuss his new biography "Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story." The conversation delves deeply into the process of researching and writing about Don and Phil Everly—rock and roll pioneers whose signature harmonies influenced generations. Mazor explains the challenges and surprises of his in-depth research, the legacy of the Everly Brothers, and how biography writing bridges historical gaps for contemporary audiences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of the Book (03:30–04:41)

• Lack of Serious Scholarship:
  Barry noticed there was no “serious depth-sourced book” about the Everly Brothers, despite their huge influence and Hall of Fame status.
• Personal Connection:
  He’s been a lifelong fan:

  "I've been listening to them since I was 8 years old... and Bird Dog was on the radio. And ever after." (04:02, Mazor)

2. Writing and Research Process (04:50–06:45)

• Methodology:
  Starts with obvious sources to build timelines, then layers more detailed and conflicting sources to reveal the real story.
• Research Challenges:
  The era is now distant:

  “Everybody who worked on their big hits for Cadence records … They're all gone. … So this was history then asking if you interviewed Mr. Lincoln.” (06:19, Mazor)

• Use of Documents:
  Relied heavily on documents, interviews, and untouched archives due to the passing of direct witnesses.

3. Crafting the Story; Unexpected Discoveries (07:19–08:48)

• Complex Personalities:
  The Everly Brothers were deeply complex, not simply the smiling “rock gods” of their early image.
• Their Relationship:

  "There's this thing called the Everly Brothers ... it's a business, it's a group, it's an act. And then there's this guy, Phil Everly, and this guy Don Everly ... who had to live with this practically stapled to each other for 60 years." (07:39, Mazor)

• Interplay of Business and Family:
  The book explores how personal relations and business demands were inextricably linked.

4. Archival Support and Source Material (09:18–10:04)

• Unique Access:
  Barry received exclusive, unpublished materials from noted Nashville journalist Robert K. Oermann.
• International Sources:
  Leveraged Everly Brothers’ international fan clubs and rare press clippings from around the world.

5. Constructing the Narrative: Editing and Structure (10:21–10:58)

• Editorial Process:
  Mazor employs decades of experience to find narrative structure:

  "Once I find the structure, you go with it and you shape it and you rewrite and you rewrite." (10:21, Mazor)

• Timeframe:
  The book took three and a half years to write.

6. After Finishing: Reflection and Authorial Satisfaction (11:19–12:21)

• Accepting 'Done':
  Mazor admits it’s tempting to keep adding, but "eventually you get off the pot. It's like, yeah, this is done now. I like deadline work." (11:37, Mazor)

7. New Perceptions of the Everlys (12:21–13:21)

• Shift in Understanding:
  Writing the book changed Mazor’s perception, particularly of the brothers as individuals.
• Process of Discovery:

  “My favorite question people ask is, how did you know all that? Of course, the answer is, I didn't know all that. I found out all that.” (13:19, Mazor)

8. On Inclusion and Exclusion—Selecting What’s Told (10:04–10:54)

• Choosing Content:
  The act of condensing is key: "The very act of tightening it up gets you closer to… what it's about. Don't need that. This is the thing, it's the work." (10:54, Mazor)

9. On Reactions and Reception (14:08–14:58)

• Critical Praise:
  The biography has received positive reviews from outlets like The LA Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
• Validation:

  “What really touches me is that the things I meant to do ... a bunch of smart reviewers ... picking up on what I hoped would be found.” (14:47, Mazor)

10. What’s Next for Barry Mazor? (15:04–15:58)

• Future Plans:
  Marketing the book is the current focus. At 75, Mazor candidly says:

  “The subject has to bubble up and find me… I better mean it [the next time I commit].” (15:15, Mazor)

11. The Difference Between Memoir and Biography (17:06–17:53)

• Objective Account:

  "There's a fundamental difference between memoirs ... and a biography. This is not a memoir. ... This is as best I can get a knowledgeable, reasonably objective picture of what happened." (17:06, Mazor)

12. Interview Techniques & New Interviews (18:01–19:26)

• Fresh Sources:
  Prioritized interviewing people who hadn't been previously quoted—producers, road managers, long-term girlfriends—over “stock” sources who repeat decades-old stories.
• Filling the Gaps:
  Asked the questions no one else addressed in past interviews.

13. Breadth and Depth of Blood Harmony (19:29–20:25)

• Comprehensiveness:
  At 400 pages, covers 80 years—from the brothers’ earliest performances as toddlers to late-career events.
• Undiscovered Content:

  "There's a high percentage of what's in this book nobody's ever read before. ... This is new stuff. As I say, it's not been done." (20:08, Mazor)

14. Tone of the Book: Empathy and Objectivity (20:39–21:15)

• Balanced and Empathetic:

  "This is an empathetic book. This is not a nasty, tell-all, gossip book. … There were dark chapters … I would tell those straight, like the joyous chapters." (20:39, Mazor)

15. The Everly Brothers' Legacy and Influence (22:20–23:10)

• Musical Innovation:
  They fused country harmonies with R&B rhythms, influencing artists from Dylan to the Beatles.

  “The Everly Brothers introduced a turn in music which has affected us ever since … Nobody did that before then. And you can immediately follow what happens next. Ask the Beatles. Musically, that mattered.” (22:49, Mazor)

16. Fame and Public Perception (23:34–23:45)

• Opening Line of the Book:

  “The difference between the famed and the rest of us is that so many people think they know them.” (23:34, Mazor)
  Sets the tone for the book’s challenge: demystifying the celebrities beyond their public image.

17. Final Pitch: What Readers Will Discover (23:59–24:25)

• What readers can expect:

  “You’re going to feel like you know them more than you ever knew them before. … A lot of people already have been telling me, whoa, I didn’t know about all those records. Some people are saying it takes them a long time to read because they keep turning to the records that come up to hear them. That’d be good. Have fun with it.” (23:59, Mazor)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On doing a deep biographical dive:

  “It shocks people. But the first time Don and Phil Everly walked into a recording studio here in Nashville is 70 years ago this year.” (06:04, Mazor)

• On the lasting impact of the Everly Brothers:

  “They may not know that Don Everly tried to commit suicide twice. They may not also know the great influence they had on the entire generation of stars that came after … Ask the Beatles. Musically, that mattered.” (22:20–23:10, Mazor)

• On the myth vs. reality of fame:

  “The difference between the famed and the rest of us is that so many people think they know them.” (23:39, Mazor)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:30] – What inspired Barry to write the biography
• [04:50] – Research methodology and early process
• [06:17] – The historical distance and research challenges
• [07:39] – On the complexity of the Everly Brothers' relationship
• [09:18] – Use of unique and unpublished sources
• [10:21] – Editorial process and crafting narrative structure
• [12:21] – Changing perceptions through writing
• [14:20] – Early critical and reader reactions
• [15:15] – Future plans for Mazor
• [17:06] – Memoir vs. biography distinction
• [19:29] – Scale and scope of "Blood Harmony"
• [22:20] – Everly Brothers' foundational influence on music history
• [23:34] – The myth of fame and public perception
• [23:59] – Final pitch for the book and what readers can expect

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Tone & Language

The conversation is warm, reflective, and focused on both craft and historical insight. Mazor approaches his subject empathetically, with an eye for nuance and respect for the impact of the Everly Brothers and for the work of serious biographical writing.

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Takeaway

"Blood Harmony" promises to bring new insight, empathy, and historical depth to the story of the Everly Brothers, correcting gaps in public knowledge and revealing both the joy and complexity behind their cultural legacy—between family, fame, and the making of truly revolutionary music.

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Transcript

[Tony Mantour]

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[Tony Mantour]

My career in the entertainment industry industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind the scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes, and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind the scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is acclaimed music journalist and author Barry Mazur as he unveils Blood the Everly Brothers Story, the definitive biography of rock and roll pioneers Don and Phil Everly. With his signature blend of meticulous research and vivid storytelling, he delves into the lives of the iconic duo whose harmonies and groundbreaking fusion of country and pop shape modern music. Drawing on exclusive interviews and rare archival material, Blood Harmony offers a compelling portrait of two brothers whose music continues to resonate across generations. It's a pleasure to have him here to share the story behind writing this remarkable book. Thanks for coming on.

[Barry Mazur]

I appreciate you having me. I don't think we met, but now we have.

[Tony Mantour]

You're in Nashville, right?

[Barry Mazur]

Yeah, sure.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, I'm in Nashville too. It's amazing our paths have not crossed. Been here 32 years now.

[Barry Mazur]

Well, we've been here 22 years. Of course they still ask me where I'm really from.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, I don't get that as much as I used to. Now I worked at radio for a while. Of course I had to watch my speech. So to not have any particular accent. I don't worry about that now. You get what you get.

[Barry Mazur]

Yeah, I've done radio too. I had a streaming radio show here for quite a while out of Acme radio downtown, like 190 episodes. But they can't quite place mine because we moved around a lot in Pennsylvania. It's just sort of general northeast in Pennsylvania. No spot in particular.

[Tony Mantour]

Well, it's always nice to go down memory lane. But we are here to talk about your book that you've written about the Everly Brothers. So can you give us a little information on what led to that?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I think, as you know, I've been writing about music as a journalist and also as an author for a long time. Some 50 years at this point. Like a lot of writers about music, I noticed something that simply wasn't a serious depth sourced book about the lives and music of the early brothers. There were fan books, but if you look at the 10 original members of the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, all of them have multiple books like that by this point, but not these guys. And I was having an online conversation with another music writer I know, Elijah Wald, who, among other things, did the Dylan goes Electric thing. And he was asking that question, which keeps being asked. And I said, I don't know. We were tossing it around. It turned out my literary agent was picking up on this conversation and he said, why don't you do it? And I said, why don't I? And that came pretty automatically because I've been listening to them since I was 8 years old. The alley with a transistor radio and Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Bird Dog was on the radio. And ever after.

[Tony Mantour]

I remember those days with the transistor radio. When you started this, you had to get the backstory. So how did you approach that in getting this started?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I have a certain way I work always with this stuff. Yeah, you start with the obvious. I go to the most obvious available sources and work up timeline. Once you do that from different sources pretty early on, things start to gel against each other. Oh, that happened the same time as that. Oh, they said that, but they were here. You start to get questions and then you start to fill it in. I filled it in for three years and from there, eventually, if you're lucky. And I really felt that happen this time along the way, I found out what this was really about. And you start to shape the story and the story arc to work for the story you're telling. If you work my way, you don't go in knowing exactly where that's going to take you. You find it, which is what I did.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, that makes total sense. I've heard from several of my writer friends that once they get going into a book, the characters kind of take over and they write down what's happening, but they're not really controlling it. Did that kind of scenario happen to you at all during this writing process? Is there any similarities there at all?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, it's usually fiction writers say that, and it's kind of spooky, if you ask me. These were real people with real lives. They were facts of the matter that came up and behaviors that came. And I had a pretty vast array of material to dig into to look at. One of the things you understand is that it shocks people. But the first time Donna, Phil Everly walked into a recording studio here In Nashville is 70 years ago this year.

[Tony Mantour]

Wow. I didn't realize it was that long.

[Barry Mazur]

This is history. Everybody who worked on their big hits for Cadence records, the ones people know best, the Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, you know, All I have to Do Is Dream. They're all gone. There's not a single person that were involved with those still alive. So this was history then asking if you interviewed Mr. Lincoln. So this is. Go to the documents. And it was like that. And there's a lot of documents, most of them untouched, precisely because there hadn't been a deep dive book like this.

[Tony Mantour]

With everyone associated with the first hits and not here now. What were some of the challenges you hit trying to do this deep dive into the background of them?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, the challenge was to beat the goal, which this is a biography, and you want them to be alive and on the page, and you want to deliver. What were they doing in that room? What were they feeling? What were they thinking? So you particularly look for material like that when you find it. Hazel has a screenwriting background, which means you look for scenes that are really telling about that. Let's show that stuff.

[Tony Mantour]

So as you moved on this and did the deeper dive and it was all coming together, what surprised you? Because anytime you do something like this, there's always going to be something that jumps out of left field and catches you off guard. You just didn't anticipate that. And you kind of go, whoa, what just happened here?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I suspected that these were two complex individuals. I'd actually met and interviewed Phil at one point, not Don, but, you know, you get an image of the Everly Brothers especially kind of stuck at the beginning with these sort of rock gods with high pile ducktail haircuts and they're smiling and everybody's like, you know, aren't they Telegenic but these were two intelligent, complex individuals and there is no simple version of who they were. There's no simple version of how they related to each other. Because there's this thing called the Everly Brothers. It's a business, it's a group, it's an act. And then there's this guy, Phil Everly, and this guy Don Everly with his brothers, who had to live with this practically stapled to each other for 60, for 60 years. How do you do? What's it like for them? So I think the degree to which their personal relations and temperaments aligned with the way they related to that act over all that time, how they stuck with it and the troubles they had. People have often heard that they had clashes and differences and this kind of thing, but they were closely aligned. So the book is about who these guys were in the music and who the act was. It had to be. And it very closely connected. Those two questions.

[Tony Mantour]

Did you. Or what kind of reactions did you get from people that either knew them or was associated with them from reading the book, that they were maybe shocked? Well, maybe not shocked, but surprised?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, yeah, as I said, there's some people that were not available to me except in documents. And by the way, even by documents, we have. You'll know. And we have a. We have a well known music journalist here in town, a friend of mine, Bob Orman, Robert K. Orman.

[Tony Mantour]

Yes, I'm very familiar with him.

[Barry Mazur]

He had written about the Everlys. He was a great fan of those and written about them many times. But when you write for a newspaper, you do an article. He'd do an interview with Don everly in the 90s and they'd use two sentences from it in a newspaper story. Well, he had all the rest of that material which he made available to me. There's an international fan club for the Everlys which still has like 18,000 members. And they have preserved clippings from all over the world from newspaper coverage in Appleton, Wisconsin, or in Brussels or in the Philippines. And they had this great collection which they shared with me. When you start to put these things together, there's a lot of Phil and Don in there. I got to pick what made the book.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, that's so great. So that leads me to this. You got to pick what you was going to put into the book.

[Barry Mazur]

That's the job.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, yeah. How difficult was that? You have all this information and a lot of it was very vital to what they were. Then you have to compile it all and put it all together in such a structure that tells the story the way that you wanted it to.

[Barry Mazur]

Yeah, well, once I find the structure, you go with it and you shape it and you rewrite and you rewrite. And as I said, I've been a journalist and an author and an editor for 50 years. I've written hundreds of profiles for the Wall Street Journal, for no Depression magazine. The idea of how do you find the beginning, middle and end of a thing is kind of pretty natural to me by this point. Yes. It's more complex thing with a book, you start to find it, you know, it was longer at one point and tit tightening it up. And the very act of tightening it up gets you closer to. Yeah, this is what it's about. Don't need that. This is the thing, it's the work.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, absolutely. How long did it take you from start to finish?

[Barry Mazur]

Three and a half years.

[Tony Mantour]

Three and a half years. So when you sit back and it's all complete, I know when I listen to something that I've produced, I'll always have that, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that. It's all good. But you still find things that you could have done in your mind better. Did you have any of those? Oh, why didn't I do this moment?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I think that happened earlier on, so I was able to get at it. Gets the point. Yeah. This is the other thing. Get some good experience and you'll know it too. That's all true. And I have, you know, two previous books published out there and there's things I learned. You know, as soon as the book comes out, people call you with 14 pieces of information you never heard before. The answer is eventually you get off the pot. It's like, yeah, this is done now. I like deadline work. You know, I could have asked for like one of these ten year biographies. I'll talk to you someday. You know, I agreed to three years. So we concentrate and get it done. I'm a deadline kind of guy and that works for me. So right now, you know, it just went out, published in print over the last two weeks. And if that point's going to come again where I say I should have, it hasn't hit yet. Maybe Will.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So you as a fan, you listened to them, like you said back in the day on transistor radio, you had your perception of them, what they were. Do you have a different perception of what they were now that you're finished?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I think the difference was about them as Individuals. I was aware I had a pretty large. Their stuff is in circulation now. Things like Big Bear Family boxes of their music from all through the years. I knew well past their early hits that the people who only very casually know them know. So I was aware of the different periods of their music, their comebacks, the different labels, the styles. So I was able to hear, like, some work in the studio. I was able to see something people haven't seen for a long time. Their PrimeTime summer replacement TV show from 1970. There were things that I could get at that maybe evolved the way I could talk about the making of some of these records and, you know, and talking to people. I learned something about the production process. But most. Most of what I felt like I learned was about the people, you know, And I didn't have. I didn't have really locked down perceptions about it. I learned it. I. My favorite question people ask is, how did you know all that? Of course, the answer is, I didn't know all that. I found out all that.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, right, that makes sense. So as it started coming together and it was taking shape, did you ever have that feeling that there's just one more story, one more item, one more topic, anything that might just put the cherry on top to make it that much better for you?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, there's always more. I mean, the fact of the situation is, as I said, a lot of people, if I had any idea I was doing this book 15 years ago, I would have been able to talk to a lot of people that aren't available for me to talk to anymore. There's always that, you know, but it's now you make the most of what you can do with when and where you do it and the materials you can get at. So I don't worry about that too much. There's enough to do, as you asked before, with what you have.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, for sure. Now that it's completed, it's getting out there for everybody to purchase. Are you getting reactions yet? And if you are, are they the reactions that you had hoped for?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I'm already getting it. There have been, I gotta say, really positive reviews of the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, readers magazines that cover books as they come out. It's been pretty universally as much as I could ask for. And I don't mean. Yeah, and they're like five stars, thumb up, must read all that kind of stuff. But I think what really touches me is that the things I meant to do, which I just said to you, which is get them on the Page show how what they made related to who they are. There's a bunch of smart reviewers who've been picking up on what I hoped would be found. And when you hear somebody's picking up on what you wanted to do, there's nothing more gratifying than that.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, yeah. That way you know that they are getting exactly what you were writing about.

[Barry Mazur]

And not everybody will, and you can't count on that.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, yeah. That is so true. Now that you have this under the belt, what's next on the list of things to do?

[Barry Mazur]

Oh, I have no idea. What's next is Flocking is helping market this book for the months ahead. And I'm 75 years old, man. I hope I do another book, but I got a catch of breath.

[Tony Mantour]

Sure. I get that.

[Barry Mazur]

There was years between my last one on Ralph Pierre and this. The subject has to kind of bubble up and find me, you know, I think at this point in life, the next time I commit, you know, years, I better mean it. You know, it's like I. It's not like I'm making my next single, you know, this is. This is a book. And I will. I'll be back writing my reviews for the papers and those sort of things. After a few months, I took a break from that. But I don't know. We'll see. I have certain things in the back of my head, but I don't know which one will get to be real.

[Tony Mantour]

Yes. So now that it's done, it's completely written, my question is, are you happy? Are you happy with the way it all turned out?

[Barry Mazur]

Yeah, I would have to say so. I mean, I kind of agree with that old adage that it's better to have written than to be writing. I mean, writing is hard, man. You know, it's like lots of people in the art, including even some of the Everly family, were like, we're going to do our own book. All these performers say, we're going to do our own book. And they almost never do because when they start it, they discover how very difficult it is. It's long, it's hard, it's a slog, it's detailed, and you have to have a certain appetite for it. Besides ability. Better at both.

[Tony Mantour]

Exactly. It's very difficult. A lot of people do not realize how difficult it is to write about yourself or your family. Most people tend to forget most of the integral things that are very important to the story, where someone like yourself will ask a lot of questions and dig a lot. And that's where the Deep dive comes in to get all the information to put into the story that needs to be told.

[Barry Mazur]

There's a fundamental difference between memoirs, which is what you were just describing, and a biography. This is not a memoir. Those can be great. That's a deliberately personal memory of somebody's experience with the other. My friend Tom Piazza is about to have a book come out of the last couple of years. His friendly relationship with John Prine and traveling around with him. That's not a biography of John Prine, although he was going to be doing that at one point. That's a memoir of his specific experience. This book is not my specific experience. Well, one or two points. I briefly let her come in for a few paragraphs because I was there. This is as best I can get a knowledgeable, reasonably objective picture of what happened. You only got two questions. What happened? And how did that happen?

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah. So where did you get some of the information? Who helped you in contributing to some of the facts that were in the book?

[Barry Mazur]

There were people. I had a rule of the people that are alive, that knew them over the years. You think about the years, it was like I said, almost everybody's 83. And if they're people that writers go to, they've been dining out on those same Everly Brothers stories for up to 50 years. They've told them over and over. And in my experience, if they change much, it's because they're starting to get embellished or somebody actually forgot something. So I'd almost rather see what that we have documented down in print from years ago than to revisit that. Who I did look for, I wanted two people that I talked to like that because, you know, you get to ask the question nobody asked, which is an irritating thing when you go to the documents, it might be a good interview and they get right up to the one you really want to know and then they don't ask it. So I can do that. But most of the people I interviewed for the book, and there were still dozens, were people who were not talked to about this before. The producer of their TV show, the road manager for years, a couple, you know, they had seven wives between the two of them. I also spoke to two of the some of the long term girlfriends who hadn't really been on the record before. And at this point we're willing to talk. So it's a wide variety engineers. And on the other hand, there's a girlfriend and I'm deliberately looking for the things that I haven't known, the stuff I need to fill in what I try to get when I talk to people like that. And it was helpful. Yeah, lots of those were very fruitful discussions, as people can see in the book Blood Harmony.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, yeah. So how long is the book?

[Barry Mazur]

About 400 pages.

[Tony Mantour]

Wow. 400 pages. I can just imagine the content in that.

[Barry Mazur]

It covers the whole 80 years. It goes back to their family. I mean, Don and Phil Everly were performing with their dad in Chicago when they were like 2 and 5 years old. 2 and 4. I mean, so it's like basically, you know, and they were professionally performing from like 1945 to 2005. It's 60 years. So there's a lot to kind of get a hold of.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, Exactly. So in 400 pages, I mean, you really did a real deep dive. And I'm sure you have things in there that people have just completely forgotten about.

[Barry Mazur]

Let me tell you something. People have already been saying it, except for extremely involved fans who may have collected everything they know. There's probably. There's a high percentage of what's in this book nobody's ever read before. They don't know and have no idea. This is new stuff. As I say, it's not been done.

[Tony Mantour]

That's just perfect. And when you can be the first to bring out so many different things that have never, ever been told and bring that to a new audience plus the older audience, that's a win.

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I hope so. I mean, if they feel that way, it's. They have to have an appetite for what I'm. What I'm telling them. This is an empathetic book. This is not a nasty, tell all, you know, gossip book. It does have personal lives in it. And there were dark chapters in those lives. And I would tell those straight, like the joyous chapters in their lives.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. When you're trying to be as objective as you personally can as a writer, you have to tell the darker things along with the lighter things so it all balances out so that it shows that everything that you wrote is very objective.

[Barry Mazur]

There's kind of two rules doing this. One, remember what I'm saying about the structure of the book, which is about the making of the music and who they were and how they interact. So whether the specific story is dark or light, to the degree to which it affects both of those, I'm interested in their personal lives to the degree that affected the music they made and what they wrote and how they performed. So that's not a dark or light question is how Significant. And how much did it matter? That matters to me. And then on top of it, you know, how telling is it? A dark story that's like nothing but scurrilous. And you're just trying to get clickbait on it is not telling. It's clickbait. And a wonderful story about, you know, their happy birthday party and the happy smiling kids is not necessarily very interesting either. The question is, in each case is, you know, how does this matter?

[Tony Mantour]

When you were exploring this, did you discover anything perhaps lesser known that could resonate with people, helping them feel more connected to their purpose or what really, truly matter to them with what you wrote in the book?

[Barry Mazur]

Well, I certainly hope so. That's what the 400 pages are. I mean, they may not know that Don Everly tried to commit suicide twice. They may not also know the great influence they had on the entire generation of stars that came after. Whether that's Bob Dylan or the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones or Cretans. Half the British Invasion, the Beatles. The Everly Brothers introduced a turn in music which has affected us ever since. This is what matters here, which is that they weren't rockabillies. They took inside out what people had been doing. They maintained these close suite country harmonies which they were raised on. And they added to those hard driving R and B guitar slashing rhythms that would have a future. Nobody did that before then. And you can immediately follow what happens next. Ask the Beatles. Musically, that mattered.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, absolutely. That was the whole premise of my question. You just nailed it perfectly. I really like what you're doing and what you've written because I love history of music. And when you get into the history of people like the Everly Brothers or whoever it may be, there are just so many things that come out that you just might not have realized. So I think this is great that you wrote this book.

[Barry Mazur]

It's the whole point. If you looked at the book, the very first sentence says the difference between the famed and the rest of us is that so many people think they know them.

[Tony Mantour]

That is a great quote.

[Barry Mazur]

That's where this book starts.

[Tony Mantour]

In closing, what would you like to tell the listeners that they can expect that will give them incentive to go out there and buy your book about the Everly Brothers.

[Barry Mazur]

I think you have every reason to be curious about these two brothers and what they did. You may be already. What I can tell you is when you dive in there, you're going to feel like you know them more than you ever knew them before. And you're going to get a new sense of how they matter. And a lot of people already have been telling me, whoa, I didn't know about all those records. Some people are saying it takes them a long time to read because they keep turning to the records that come up to hear them. That'd be good. Have fun with it.

[Tony Mantour]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been great, great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

[Barry Mazur]

Thank you. And I appreciate when people ask about how it happened and not just the. Not just the subject. You get used to people talking about subject rather than the fact that this is a written piece of work. So thank you.

[Tony Mantour]

Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantour production. For more information, contact contact media at platomusic. Com.