The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil; born Isaac Donald "Don" Everly on February 1, 1937 and Phillip "Phil" Everly on January 19, 1939, are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing. The group was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
Don and Phil Everly are both guitarists and use vocal harmony mostly based on parallel thirds. With this, each line can often stand on its own as a melody line. This is in contrast to classic harmony lines which, while working well alongside the melody, are not as melodic by themselves.
For most of their recordings, Don sings the lower harmony part, while Phil takes the higher. One exception is on "Devoted To You". Although Don is still low and Phil is high, they switch lead and harmony back and forth. Don almost always sings any lines that are sung solo (for example, the verses of "Bye Bye Love".) Among the exceptions to this rule is the Everlys' 1965 single "It's All Over", where Phil sings the song's solo lines.
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." His works and innovations inspired and influenced contemporary and later musicians, notably The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, and exerted a profound influence on popular music. Holly was among the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, to Lawrence Odell and Ella Pauline (Drake) Holley. In Philip Norman's biography it is stated that his mother's family claimed to be descended from the English navigator Francis Drake.