Robbed hit of the week 11/4/13 - The Everly Brothers' "On The Wings Of A Nightingale"...

The Everly Brothers - "On The Wings Of A Nightingale"
from the album EB 84 (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50

This week's "robbed hit" is by a sibling duo that was no stranger to the top of the charts, the Everly Brothers. Don and Phil's father was a locally known musician in Kentucky, and from an early age they were performing with their dad on the radio. After a failed start on Columbia Records, the boys were signed to Cadence, where along with songwriting married duo Felice and Boudreaux Bryant they started to rack on hit singles, beginning with "Bye Bye Love" which went to #2 on the pop chart, #6 on R&B, and topped the country format list in 1957.  Their follow-up "Wake Up Little Susie", climbed to the top of the pop chart in Billboard that same year. In the next year they went to #1 with "All I Have To Do Is Dream", and in 1960 after switching to Warner Brothers they topped the list with "Cathy's Clown". In the five years between 1957 through 1962 they racked up 15 top-10 singles on Billboard's pop chart, ending with "That's Old Fashioned (That's The Way Love Should Be)".

The duo's fortunes turned for the worse for a while, though, when they fought with former manager Wesley Rose, who owned the publishing company they not only were on contract for themselves but of their songwriting svengalis the Bryants. This, combined with a growing drug addiction for both of the brothers, had an effect on their work, amd after 1962 their popularity dipped pretty sharply, and when the Beatles came around, there was definitely no turning it around. They managed to have only two top-40 singles between 1963 and the end of the decade, with "Bowling Green" the last scraping in at #40 in 1967. Tension between the brothers had gotten so bad that they split up in 1973, and wouldn't perform together again for a decade.

In 1983, the brothers reconciled (well, at least professionally) and performed a "comeback revival" show in England that went over really well. In the wake of that, the Everlys recorded an album of material with Brit retro king Dave Edmunds, and the first single from the set, "On The Wings Of A Nightingale", was written by none other than Paul McCartney...

"On The Wings of A Nightingale" peaked in the top half on the pop chart in the US in October of 1984, while also going all the way to #9 on the adult-contemporary (easy-listening) format and #49 on the country chart. It also just missed the British top-40 at #41 as well.

The duo would go on to have a few more hits on the country chart, with "Born Yesterday", the title track from their follow-up album to EB 84, reaching #17 on both the country and adult contemporary lists. They've been held up as one of the most heralded music artists in the early rock era, being part of the first 10 inductions in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Their ability to bridge gaps between rock, country, and soul music was instrumental in getting pop music into the rock era the way it is. And this single brings a nice coda to the brothers' careers on a good note.

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...and here's Paul's demo for the song....

...and on TV in England in 1985...