Last night's celebrity cameos

I've had a lot of celebrities parading through my dreams lately. George Clooney was off-camera at one point. Robert Pattinson appeared in another dream and I sat there reciting Russell Brand's comedy into his face.

Last night was quite a cavalcade of stars. It started out with Henry Cavill, the English actor known for "The Tudors" and "Man of Steel." An unidentifiable friend of mine was interviewing him from the comfort of our sleazy motel room as we all crowded onto the same twin bed. Henry didn't know what exactly the "UK" was, and I began to berate his parents for spending so much money on his education. Cut to a later scene where I'm at Henry's wedding reception...to himself. I do not think wedding means what you think it means, Henry. Anyway, the wedding vittles were delicious.

The scene changed and I was suddenly at some sort of conference, like Comic-Con without all the costumes. I got very excited when I spotted UK chat show host Graham Norton making his way through the crowd. Alas, I didn't get to speak to him; he was moving too fast.

And finally, what I consider to be the big kahuna of celebrity cameos: Russell Brand. I was sitting quietly, watching him try to get a blonde woman drunk. She'd already had three shots of Jameson, but I encouraged her to go up to ten as I liked to do. Another blonde came and sat down and I watched Russell interacting with the women, remaining as a silent observer the entire time. Who knows where the rest of the dream would lead?

RIP Phil Everly

The world lost another musical legend when Phil Everly died at age 74 on Friday, January 3, 2014. The moment I heard the news, two thoughts occurred to me. First, my dad played The Everly Brothers’ albums when I was growing up, even telling me that “Bye, Bye Love” was the very first song he learned on the guitar. Second, I used “All I Have To Do Is Dream” to catapult the love story in the novel I’m writing.

I spent an hour that night listening to my favorite songs by the duo and shedding a few tears. I continued to listen to their albums the next day while I cooked breakfast. As I listened, I was flooded with memories: listening to my dad’s albums like Herman and the Hermits Greatest Hits or Buck Owens’ album with special guest Susan Raye The Great White Horse. From a young age, I loved singing the harmonies. The songs of The Everly Brothers instilled this love in me.

Throughout the 80s, radio stations played many Everly covers, most notably Linda Ronstadt’s 1975 pop cover of “When Will I Be Loved,” Reba McEntire’s country cover of “Cathy’s Clown, and Nazareth’s 1976 rock cover of “Love Hurts.”

I’ve spent the past 18 months reading rock memoirs, doing research for my aforementioned novel. I was surprised at how far the Everly influence reached the souls of the rockers I admired. For instance, Steven Tyler described their bluegrass-influenced harmonies as “heartrending.” Keith Richards sang Everly harmonies with his Aunt Joanna. In 1963, the Stones had the incredible opportunity to share the bills with the duo.

Where would any of us be without the sibling melodies that permeated the music industry in the 1950s and 1960s?