The city of Central Metropolis, Kentucky has three new statues. They’re of music legends The Everly Brothers and John Prine who all had deep ties to the world and its musical custom.
LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:
There are some new monuments to admire in Central Metropolis. Music legends John Prine and the Everly Brothers had deep ties to this small city in Western Kentucky’s Muhlenberg County. Friday, the city unveiled three statues of those musicians. Derek Operle of member station WKMS was there.
DEREK OPERLE, BYLINE: The thumb-picking guitar approach was invented and perfected within the space by native musicians like Merle Travis and Ike Everly, father to Don and Phil.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BYE BYE LOVE”)
THE EVERLY BROTHERS: (Singing) Bye bye love, bye bye happiness. Howdy loneliness…
OPERLE: The pair’s harmonies made them one of many largest acts in early rock and roll. The dedication was held within the metropolis of lower than 6,000’s downtown. Ted David Everly says that echoes of his kin’ music will be heard within the work of different pairs like Paul McCartney and John Lennon and Paul Simon and Artwork Garfunkel.
TED DAVID EVERLY: Our beloved sons, Central Metropolis’s personal Everly Brothers, have both impressed immediately or not directly all people within the music business immediately.
OPERLE: Now, life-size bronze renderings of Don and Phil stand subsequent to Prine, together with replicas of their guitars not removed from the Muhlenberg Music Museum, the place Sue Aubrey works now. As a teen, she labored in a restaurant and remembers the Everly Brothers’ very good manners.
SUE AUBREY: I believe that is what caught my eye. After which in a while once I began working down right here, I obtained to know extra about Each Brothers and their music. And it is one thing that is by no means going to be repeated, I do not suppose, in historical past.
OPERLE: Don Everly was born on the outskirts of the city. His youthful brother Phil was born in Chicago, however the pair cherished to come back dwelling to Kentucky and helped manage an annual music pageant to learn the neighborhood for greater than a decade, usually with Prine, whose dad and mom had been each from the world. After the dedication, musicians, together with Prine’s brother Billy, and members of Prime’s touring band, paid tribute to the three native icons at a close-by amphitheater. David Corridor, a army veteran from Muhlenberg County, got here to hear.
DAVID HALL: It makes an individual proud that they are from this space. That lifestyle is instilled in every one in all these individuals round right here, and we deal with one another and we love one another.
OPERLE: Rolling Stone has known as Prine the Mark Twain of songwriting. Gloria and Phillip Walley of Central Metropolis agree.
PHILLIP WALLEY: Will not ever be one other John Prine.
GLORIA WALLEY: And I really like John Prine’s tales. His music tells tales, and that is what I like about his music.
OPERLE: John Prine and Don Everly died in the previous couple of years, Phil Each in 2014. Their statues stand simply 20 minutes from the place Paradise, a small coal mining neighborhood that Prine made well-known in his music of the identical title, as soon as stood, and the river the place his ashes had been unfold.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PARADISE”)
JOHN PRINE: (Singing) And Daddy, will not you are taking me again to Muhlenberg County, down by the Inexperienced River the place Paradise lay?
OPERLE: For NPR Information. I am Derek Operle in Central Metropolis, Ky.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PARADISE”)
PRINE: (Singing) …However you are too late in asking – Mr. Peabody’s coal practice has hauled it away.
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