Green Day's Armstrong, Jones team up for Everlys release

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 – Strange bedfellows - Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones - will be making music together. The two will record "Foreverly," 12 songs on "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us," an album of traditional Americana songs reinterpreted, recorded and released by The Everly Brothers in 1958.

Recorded in nine days, "Foreverly" drops Nov. 25 on Reprise.

Jones and Armstrong reinterpret several traditional songs, including Roving Gambler, Down In The Willow Garden, Long Time Gone, Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet? and Barbara Allen, plus country tunes like That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine (written by Gene Autry and Jimmy Long) and Karl Davis' Kentucky.

Originally released on Cadence Records, the Everlys' album was re-released on LP and CD many times, primarily by Rhino and EMI.

"I've been a big fan of The Everly Brothers since I was a little boy," Armstrong said. "A couple of years ago, I discovered 'Songs Our Daddy Taught Us' for the first time, and I fell in love with it. I was playing it every day and thought it would be a cool idea to re-do the record, but with a female singer. I thought of Norah because she can sing anything, from rock to jazz to blues, and I knew her harmonies would be amazing. I thought the songs would take on a different meaning working with her, and she has a really good ear for arrangements. I was mainly intrigued by these old traditionals, country songs and hymns. When we were done with the album, Norah looked at me and said, 'I bet you didn't think you were going to make a country record, huh?'"

Jones, a long-time Everly Brothers fan herself, who used to cover Bird Dog in a previous band, describes herself as "a sucker for harmonies and country music." "Billie Joe's enthusiasm about the songs and his low-key, open approach to the music was very inviting. He wasn't set in his ideas, which made it fun for us both to sort of discover what felt right for us, musically."

Armstrong and his engineer, Chris Dugan, traveled to New York to record with Jones at The Magic Shop in Manhattan with two of Jones' favorite musicians, bassist Tim Luntzel and drummer Dan Rieser. Armstrong and Jones played guitar and piano. Charlie Burnham on fiddle and Johnny Lam on pedal steel guitar rounded out the band."It was super fun and experimental," Jones said. "I loved that the original was completely stripped down and a little more obscure. There was a lot of room to interpret the songs in our own way."

The track listing is:
Roving Gambler
Long Time Gone
Lightning Express
That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine
Down In The Willow Garden
Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet
Oh So Many Years
Barbara Allen
Rockin' Alone (In An Old Rockin' Chair
I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail
Kentucky
Put My Little Shoes Away