Everly Brothers Birthplace — Brownie, Kentucky

Don and Phil Everly were born in Brownie, a small coal mining community in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky — the same county immortalised in John Prine's 'Paradise' ('And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County'). Their father Ike Everly was a respected country guitarist who raised his sons on the Carter Family, Merle Travis, and the rich guitar tradition of the Kentucky coalfields. The family eventually moved to Shenandoah, Iowa, where Don and Phil appeared on their parents' radio show as children, before settling in Nashville where their career would take off.

The Everly Brothers' close-harmony singing — derived from the Appalachian brother duet tradition and refined into something new — was the bridge between country music and rock and roll that the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel explicitly studied. 'Bye Bye Love,' 'Wake Up Little Susie,' 'All I Have to Do Is Dream,' 'Cathy's Clown,' and 'When Will I Be Loved' established a vocal approach of extraordinary tightness and emotional directness. Paul McCartney has said that he and John Lennon modelled their harmony singing entirely on the Everlys.

Muhlenberg County in western Kentucky is coal country that has seen significant economic decline. The Everly Brothers' connection is commemorated in Central City, the county seat, with a small museum. The broader western Kentucky music heritage — bluegrass, country, and the influence of the coalfields on working-class music — is worth exploring.