I played guitar and sang with a friend and fellow musician last night at an impromptu jam session and as always, really enjoyed the experience. When we met a couple of years ago, we soon discovered that we like the same kinds of songs and also that we seem to have a natural ability to harmonize. I don’t know how we sound as we’ve never really recorded ourselves singing together, but I think we’re OK and many of those who have heard us think the same.
I have always loved all kinds of music but I have to say I am drawn to singers who harmonize. A couple of guys who sort of set the standard are the Everley Brothers (now also known as the Elderley Brothers). They are amazing. The bit of reading I’ve done about them reveals that their method of harmonizing was unique to a small area of the southern United States from where they originated. I think it was in Kentucky but all this info is available on the net. One article I read explained in technical terms what Phil and Don do to create this sound but I couldn’t understand it. One of the reasons they are so good is they have been singing together since they were very young. And their parents were entertainers too.
But what is fascinating to me is that no one else in the world of popular music has been able to replicate the Everley style though many have tried. The Beatles idolized them and tried to mimic their sound and while they came up with something very appealing, it was not the Everley sound. Other great harmonizers in the pop world have been Peter and Gordon, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel and others.
But I saw two fabulous singers – James Taylor and Art Garfunkel – singing the Everleys’ Crying in the Rain and while they did a good job, they are no Phil and Don on that song.
When you are singing harmony and you click with the other person, it is an amazing feeling. In my life, this has not happened often to me. When one of my sisters and I were young we could sing harmony pretty well but I haven’t really felt so connected like that until these past couple of years.
If I was a professional hockey player, a star right winger, I think this would be equivalent to finding the ideal left winger to play with, like Gordie Howe being teamed up with Alex Delvecchio. That wordless communication, knowing instinctively where the other person is going and where you should go too, is a joy. It is, for me, the real fun of playing and singing.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
