Though the Everlys had responded to the British Invasion with some terrific music, their albums never seemed to return them to their pre-Beatles acclaim. Fine efforts like "Beat and Soul" found the brothers applying their golden harmonies to contemporary songs, but with limited commercial success. In a last-ditch effort to reconnect the Everlys with contemporary pop audiences, producer (and future label head) Lenny Waronker looked to ride the country-rock wave by bringing Phil & Don back to their beginnings. The result is the most solid original album in the Everlys catalog.

This final studio effort for Warner Brothers bridges the divide between the Everlys' country roots, their rock 'n' roll fame and the then-burgeoning roots scene. The track list pulls together country and hillbilly classics from Merle Haggard, Jimmie Rodgers and Ray Price, and melds them with songs from then-contemporary writers Ron Elliott (whose own Beau Brummels were finishing up their own Warner swan-song, "Bradley's Barn") and Randy Newman. Waronker and Elliot (who wrote many of the arrangements) craft sounds that range from traditional acoustic set-ups to more contemporary electric country-rock. The clever inter-splicing of audio from the Everly family's early radio program gives the entire disc a terrifically homey feel. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2005 hyperbolium dot com]

Had this been released in probably any year after 1968, it would have been marketed aggressively and mentioned in the same breath as SGT. PEPPER, GRACELAND, BLUE or other albums that have a full, special wholeness to them. With all due respect to their Fifties and early Sixties "hits," this is the finest music the Everly Brothers ever made. From "Mama Tried" through "Ventura Boulevard" through "Illinois" through all of the snippets from the Everly Family radio show, this album not only gives you a sense of the "roots" of Phil and Don but features committed, passionate music-making at it's finest. Any collection that has any folk or country or plain old GOOD MUSIC should have this CD as well.

Jim Babjak, the lead guitar player for the Smithereens, used to own a record store in New Brunswick NJ called Flamin' Groovies. I was a regular customer there from 1982 through 1984 or so. Every now and then, Jim would insist I buy a particular record, especially if it was one I wouldn't have bought on my own. This was one, and I'm forever grateful to him. One of the best country-rock records ever made and a highpoint in their great career.

When there is a surfeit of great big noisy rock records, it is easy to miss a quieter masterpiece. Such was the fate of "Roots" by The Everly Brothers when it was released by Warner Bros. in 1968 and failed to even chart. Amidst the releases of seminal records by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Band and others, "Roots" literally got lost in the shuffle. Only years later...about twenty years more or less, was "Roots" finally acknowledged by critics and musicians alike for being the watershed country-rock album that it was. I first read about "Roots" in Jimmy Guterman's idiosyncratic, occasionally hilarious, yet very well balanced book, "The Best Rock `n' Roll Records of All Time" c. 1992, Citadel Press. Guterman included "Roots" (Number 59) in his rollickingly subjective list of 100 great rock records because, as Guterman rightly noted, "it stands as the duo's only mid-period work in which they offered to each other or their audience something worth sharing: lived-in history."

After reading Jimmy's thumbs up review of "Roots" and being quite curious about this music, the first version of "Roots" that I obtained was the excellent Warner Archives CD reissue. Later, I bought the fine 2005 Collector's Choice Music CD reissue of "Roots". It took some time for me to get into this record, but the effort was definitely worth it, for "Roots" is a collection of popular and traditional country songs that Don and Phil nudge into rock territory with their brilliantly shimmering mountain harmonies that made them so much fun to listen to back in the early days of rock and roll. "Roots" is an organic composition that one needs to listen to whole, although each track is a strong performance on its' own. The album opens with an unassuming homespun snippet from the Everly Family's 1952 radio show that welcomes the listener in and away from the fighting that literally was taking place out on the streets of Chicago and elsewhere back in 1968. The Everly's give the listener some needed time to rest and reflect as they sing us back home in many by now, quite recognizable country songs by Merle Haggard ("Mama Tried"), Glen Campbell ("Less of Me"), Jimmie Rodgers ("T for Texas") as well as a few of their own tunes and one song ("Illinois") by a budding songwriter named Randy Newman. The tales spun in these songs of confused lovers, misguided outlaws and of convicts facing death are stark, but the genius in the sequencing of these songs is that when heard together, the message emerges that one can go home again...even if it is just for a moment and even if only just in one's own memories. Far from being reactionary, unadorned American country music performed with the spirit and sincerity that The Everlys did on "Roots", was a reassuring and purposeful statement of continuity made at a time when the world seemed to be falling to pieces ever more each day. With their own musical careers in ruins from years of being poorly produced, The Everly Brothers went for broke on "Roots" and when allowed to sing their own pure mountain harmonies and to play their unique brand of country rock music freed from cluttered "schmaltzy" arrangements, The Everlys hit a home run! That "Roots" is the blueprint for many traditional country albums and later many alt.country and roots rock records, is to state the obvious. As influential as "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and as tuneful as "The Gilded Palace of Sin", The Everly Brothers' album "Roots", is an essential album for anyone who loves Americana roots music and for all of us who occasionally need some time to get away from the chaos, turn down the volume and reconnect with whatever or whoever we have become disconnected from. I'd give it 7 stars if that were possible!

This is a beautiful concept album that does not have one bad track. The Ron Elliot originals are particularly great.