On October 14, 1957, the Everly Brothers, one of the most important and influential groups in the history of rock ’n’ roll, have their first No. 1 song: “Wake Up Little Susie.” That success came hot on the heels of their first big hit, “Bye Bye Love,” with which they had burst onto the music scene earlier that year.
Harmony singing was a part of rock ’n’ roll right from the beginning, but the three- and four-part harmonies of doo-wop, derived from black gospel and blues traditions, would never have given us Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles or the Byrds. To get those groups, you first had to have the Everly Brothers, whose ringing, close-harmony style introduced a whole new sound into the rock ’n’ roll vocabulary: the sound of Appalachia set to hard-driving acoustic guitars and a subtle backbeat rhythm.
