I was in the audience when this happened.
The split was over the failure of “Roots”, and its followers. One of them I forget who, wanted to go country, like Jerry Lee Lewis at the time, and the other (probably Don, but I’m not sure) wanted to stay in rock.
After they got back together with the Paul McCartney song written for them, they stayed together but Salman Rushdie, who knew Don, reported at one time that they still didn’t get along and didn’t speak to each other off stage. I wonder if they ever reconciled.
Once more. The Woodstock Generation killed not only the Everly Brothers but Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino all of whom had great comeback albums around the same time and on WB Records, the finest record company around then (Chuck back on Chess), all of which sold nothing, while the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida crap was selling trillions. Roy Orbison was another one. Link Wray made a great album. Gene Vincent was still alive. Suddenly, after Sgt Paper and Woodstock history of rock and roll went into the memory hole, only to be revived in the 1980s by the Woodstock Generation musicians, who begged to be allowed on the comeback shows of the Everlys and Roy Orbison (have you seen the Black&White Night, where Bonnie Raitt played a lowly backup singer, and Tom Waits a backup piano player?) The idiot audience can only take it when their authorities feed it with a silver spoon. But the musicians themselves know their roots, man.
End rant.