Track #4, A Brand New Heartache is about a new kid that moved into town and stole the singer’s girl. Another Bryant/Bryant tune, with beautiful guitar strumming, particularly on the second bit in the middle.
Little Richard’s “Keep A Knockin’ ,Gene Vincent’s “Be Bop A Lula” and Bumps Blackwell’s “Rip It Up” fill out the middle of this effort and demonstrate how rock and roll affected older brother Don in particular. Those staggeringly rhythmic acoustic guitar chops by Don and session man Ray Edenton were direct descendents of Bo Diddley’s influence. Don Everly explains, “I heard ‘Bo Diddley’ back in ’55. I put it on and I’ll never forget it—it just nailed me. And I was immediately hit with the thought, ‘I’ll never be able to incorporate this type of rhythm into any kind of country music. But I just tried it on my open-G acoustic one afternoon, and there it was.”
The aforementioned Ray Ederton along with Buddy Harman on drums and bass man Floyd Chance, were put together for the Everlys by the great Chet Atkins. These cream of the crop session men were the main components in what would be known as the “Nashville Sound” born within the original RCA studio at 1525 McGavock Street.
Younger brother Phil speaking on Don Everly’s approach to the guitar and how it influenced everything that came after, “I know our harmonies influenced a lot of people, but when you take Donald’s intros to ‘Bye Bye Love,’ ‘Wake Up Little Susie,’ ‘Bird Dog,’ or any of the others, that was the first time those kinds of incongruous chords were used. Bo (Diddley) had the beat, but those chords were Don’s creation. If you take them, and you electrify them with a lyric on top, you have the essence of heavy rock, which is essentially a song written around a riff. Keith [Richards] alluded to that—but I think it’s ironic that Don doesn’t get more credit. Because that was the seed, right there.”