SWEET DREAMS
AT DON EVERLY'S COUNTRY INN YOU CAN CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DRIFT BACK IN
BOB ALEXANDER
* 02/14/99
The Tennessean
(Copyright 1999)
Column: GETAWAY
Kentucky
You are the dearest land outside of heaven to me.
Kentucky
I miss your laurel and your redbud trees.
I know that my mother, dad and sweetheart are waiting for me
Kentucky
I will be coming soon.
Kentucky, by Carl Davis
Don Everly, the country-at-heart half of the legendary Everly
Brothers recording duo, has pined in song for his native Kentucky
since his uprooted childhood.
* And now he finally has a little place of his own in the Bluegrass
State.
"For years I had been looking for a cabin near where I was born,
and I found one with 55 rooms!" the singer says with a laugh,
relaxing before a crackling fire at his Everly's Lake Malone Inn near
Dunmor.
"I believe as you get older, you begin to appreciate your roots,"
says Don, who at 62 is two years older than his brother, Phil, who
lives in California. "It's wonderful to sit around like this and
talk, and go for little walks. It really uplifts my heart and
spirit."
A living museum
The lobby of the rustic lodge is filled with guitars, autographed
* photos of Don's heroes and friends from both the country and rock 'n'
roll sides of the music business. It also boasts gold records from
Everly Brothers hits, including Bye Bye Love, Cathy's Clown, Bird
Dog, Wake Up, Little Susie and All I Have to Do Is Dream.
One corner is reserved for family snapshots of the young brothers
enjoying carefree summer days long ago poignant times captured in
the lyrics of their ballads.
Except for a few years when the brothers both lived in California
in the 1960s, Don has been based in Nashville, where he is active in
* the country music community. But he considers the Bluegrass State
his spiritual home. The Everly Brothers' earnest version of the old
ballad Kentucky, from the duo's album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, has
opened their live concerts for decades.
In April, the brothers returned to the stage of Nashville's Ryman
Auditorium, where they performed as Grand Ole Opry members in the
late 1950s. After an emotional introduction by their mentor and
friend, Chet Atkins, they opened the historic show with a captivating
medley of their Kentucky songs, including their hauntingly beautiful
Green River.
"I'm a sentimental guy, and that was a very emotional night for
us," says Don.
A piece of home
His Kentucky inn is about 15 miles south of Central City near Lake
Malone State Park, a popular recreational area. It was built in 1974
by oil magnate Ray Ryan, who wanted a private hunting lodge and
getaway for himself and his Hollywood friends, including Dean Martin,
William Holden and Frank Sinatra. But when Ryan couldn't get a
permit to build an airplane landing strip near the lodge, he opened
it to the public.
Don and Phil Everly were paying guests at the inn for years. It
served as the brothers' base camp during their annual Everly Brothers
Homecoming concerts, held each Labor Day weekend since 1988 in nearby
Central City.
When the property came up for sale, Don says he jumped at the
chance to own a piece of his beloved Kentucky.
The inn's restaurant serves country portions of home-style chicken
and fish dishes, and its Lake Malone Old Kentucky Favorite Breakfast
comes with sugar-cured ham and red eye gravy. Don, whose culinary
talents are well-known among his friends, says he would like to
introduce some of his favorite recipes to the dinner menu.
"There's not a plate of pasta in Nashville that's better than
mine," he brags.
Everly's Lake Malone Inn is just down the winding road from the
coal-mining hamlet where Don was born, and where he and Phil spent
summers with relatives after the family left Kentucky in pursuit of
radio jobs.
The brothers come from a performing family. Their parents, Ike
and Margaret, were well-known throughout the Midwest as country
singers and musicians. As soon as Don and Phil could hold guitars,
they became part of the family's radio show.
The Kentucky inn is about an hour north of Nashville, and two or
three times a month Don and his wife, Adela, drive up to their
retreat. He says he enjoys playing the role of country innkeeper,
particularly talking with guests, signing autographs, posing for
pictures and leading walks through the rolling countryside.
Strictly country
On Friday and Saturday nights, guests are entertained by Big
Willard and the Silvertones. Several times a year, lucky visitors
get an opportunity to hear Don perform with members of the Everly
Brothers touring band and musicians from Don's former Nashville-based
country band, the Dead Cowboys. But inn guests aren't likely to hear
any of the rock songs that helped make the Everly Brothers
world-famous and influenced the course of musical history.
* "I've always loved country music, and consider myself a country
artist, and my ambition now is to return to the Grand Ole Opry," says
Don, who with his brother thrilled the Opry audience in 1957 with
their soaring country-rooted harmonies sung over a rock beat.
Within weeks, their recording of Bye Bye Love skyrocketed to the
top of both the country and pop charts and launched a string of hit
records.
Don tells friends that at this point in his life, he "feels
compelled" to return to the Grand Ole Opry.
"I would like to complete the circle, you might say, and finish my
career as an Opry performer, with the kind of music I knew and loved
when I was growing up," he says.
When he does return, it likely will be as a solo performer.
"Phil lives in California, and he's very happy there. It would be
difficult for us to appear together regularly in Nashville," says
Don. "And we have different dreams and feelings.
"The proudest moment of my life was when we first walked out on
the Grand Ole Opry stage. I want to experience that feeling again."
If you go
Everly's Lake Malone Inn, situated halfway between Central City
and Russellville off State Highway 431, is open all year. For more
information, call 1-800-264-3602 or write Everly's Lake Malone Inn,
P.O. Box 56, Dunmor, Ky., 42339.
