A few hundred friends, fans, and family of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant gathered at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center on February 13 to celebrate the 100thanniversary of the Boudleaux’s birth and the anniversary of their Valentine’s Day meeting 75 years ago. Their son Del Bryant and his wife Carolyn served as hosts for the evening in a tribute to the Bryants’ prolific songwriting career, promising something for everyone in both musical style and fashion before pulling off a series of wardrobe changes.
The first set opened with a medley of some of their most recognizable tunes: “Bye Bye, Love,” “Devoted to You,” “Love Hurts,” and “Wake Up, Little Susie.” Much of the first half of the show featured the first on-stage performance of Boudleaux’s “Polynesian Suite,” which became a cult classic in 1967. Nashville’s Chris Scruggs, with his own legendary musical family, accompanied the full orchestra on pedal steel. Throughout the evening, audiences were treated to photographs, film footage, songs, and stories from the lives of the couple responsible for writing more than nine hundred songs and a half a billion records sales. The stories of the couple’s lifelong romance struck a perfect note for Valentine season.
During the evening, the hosts expressed appreciation to the songwriters in the audience, asking for them to stand for recognition, prompting a flurry of movement throughout the hall.
The second half of the evening delivered the music most fans came to celebrate. After intermission, the doors opened and the University of Tennessee Pride of the Southland Marching Band proceeded into the hall, filling the aisles, playing “Rocky Top” and bringing a number of Vol fans to their feet. Afterwards, Carolyn Bryant offered tongue-in-cheek apologies to fans from rival schools who might have found the song “painful.”
Steve Tyrell was joined by the McCrary Sisters for “Bye Bye Love,” one of many of the Bryants’ songs recorded by the Phil and Don Everly. Next up was Americana’s The Milk Carton Kids often compared to the Everly Brothers, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. After performing “Always It’s You,” they joked about the comparisons to other harmony duos, noting with chagrin that the Everly Brothers’ success came when they were only 21 and 23. The duo also performed “Playing in the Sand,” from a duet album recorded by Felice and Boudleaux themselves.
Promising the songs would only get sadder, Del Bryant invited the audience to Google “pop break up songs of all times,” promising every list includes the next song “Love Hurts,” which was recorded within a week by the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison, followed by the seminal recording by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris before Nazareth turned it into a rock ballad. Americana’s new power duo The War and Treaty made the song their own at the Schermerhorn.
When Jamey Johnson took the stage, he said he was “gonna do a kind of sad song” the Everly Brothers recorded, “Sleepless Nights,” but he said his favorite recording had been made by Elvis Costello and that was the version he was singing. Afterwards, he introduced “We Could,” and then said, “Del gave me a lot of stuff to say about this one”—written in 1951 by Felice for Boudleaux—“but let’s just do it.”
When the Milk Carton Kids returned to the stage to play “Wake Up, Little Susie,” adding a bass player and fiddler, Pattengale quipped, “we didn’t know we were going to have the whole orchestra, so we brought our own.” He then turned to the orchestra and said, “Take five.”
Throughout the second half of the show, the featured performers combined for a variety of the Bryants’ best-loved songs. The War and Treaty performed “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” after which Johnson was joined by Scruggs for “Out Behind the Barn.” Tyrell sang the torch song “Come Live with Me,” a perfect touch for Valentine’s Eve, before the entire cast returned to stage to close with “Bye Bye, Love.”
Del and Carolyn delivered on their promise to bring a variety of music to suit every taste, a perfect early Valentine’s gift for Music City.
