Last week, I wrote about “Under the Covers, Vol. 3,” a duet album by Susannah Hoffs and Matthew Sweet that extended the pair’s tradition of covering their favorite pop songs of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Now, there’s another duo act out there paying tribute to artists from an earlier era, but it’s radically different from “Under the Covers.” It’s “Foreverly,” a joint project of the Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong and the chanteuse Norah Jones.
As the not-bad pun of the title suggests, “Foreverly” is an homage to Don and Phil Everly, who, as the Everly Brothers, racked up more than a dozen Top Ten hits between 1957 and 1962, and influenced a generation of rock-and-rollers in the process. While the “Under the Covers” series is a natural extension of the solo work Hoffs and Sweet are known for, “Foreverly” seems like a surprising departure. Jones, though she came to fame as a pop-jazz vocalist, has always maintained an interest in country music, principally through her side band the Little Willies. But “Foreverly” started with Armstrong, who is known almost exclusively for Green Day’s snotty punk-pop. (The band’s only substantial departure, a side album recorded under the name Foxboro Hot Tubs, leaned a little more heavily on garage rock, but otherwise didn’t fall especially far from the tree.) Armstrong first met Jones when they both made guest appearances with Stevie Wonder’s band; when Armstrong conceived of the Everly Brothers tribute, he brought her aboard.
Everly tributes aren’t an especially rare thing. The Chapin Sisters released a full album’s worth, “A Date With the Everly Brothers,” earlier this year, and artists from the Beatles on have tried to match the duo’s preternaturally close harmonies. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were early graduates of the Everly academy (they would later cover “Bye Bye Love” on “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), and Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds tacked an EP of Everly covers onto the end of the 1980 Rockpile album “Seconds Of Pleasure.” But Armstrong, a fan of the Everlys since childhood, didn’t choose to dive into the covers pool by re-recording any of the duo’s huge pop-country hits, most of which were written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. There’s no “Wake Up, Little Susie” here, no “Cathy’s Clown,” no “Bird Dog,” no “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” Rather, “Foreverly” is based on the duo’s 1958 album “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us,” which in turn consisted of covers of traditional and country songs originally performed by the likes of Charlie Monroe (“Down in the Willow Garden”), Tex Ritter (“Long Time Gone”), and Gene Autry (“That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine”). Released in the wake of the brothers’ breakout debut album, “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us” was an early departure that established their country bona fides. And while “Foreverly” shifts around the track order a bit, it’s otherwise a faithful re-creation of the earlier record.
This choice of a commercially marginal (if artistically superb) record from the Everly canon works to the project’s advantage. Rather than go head to head with the brothers on their most recognizable material, Armstrong and Jones can instead focus attention on their own vocals. With the Everly Brothers, Don (the older of the two) sang the baritone parts in harmonies, as well as most of the solos, while Phil provided a tenor counterpoint. On “Foreverly,” Armstrong plays the role of Don, while Jones steps into Phil’s shoes.
From the first track, the traditional “Roving Gambler” (also recorded by Simon and Garfunkel), the remakes work in compelling ways. Armstrong does an excellent job with straightforward country singing—he’s especially good at conveying loneliness—and Jones provides skilled harmonies. Still, the dynamic here is considerably different from the source material. Armstrong and Jones just aren’t as close—in blood, in age, in upbringing, in harmony—as Don and Phil were. In addition, they’re both lead vocalists by training. And then there’s the fact that Jones, as female singers go, has a rich, sensual tone that’s quite different from Phil’s high keening. The result is a sound that leans a little more toward traditional country duets, and a little away from the unearthly harmonic choreography of the Everly originals.
On the other hand, the male-female dynamic adds a layer of romantic intrigue and sexual tension to mysterious, dark, traditional ballads like “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?” and “Barbara Allen” (which is augmented with a fiddle part by Charlie Burnham). Armstrong and Jones are also a bit more leisurely in approach—while the Everlys put their twelve songs across in forty minutes, “Foreverly” takes fifty-three minutes. In the end, though, these are points of distinction that do not detract from the pleasures of the new record, and which in fact help it in its central mission, which is to recast Armstrong and Jones as conservators of the past and send listeners back to “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.”
