Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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STATLER BROTHERS
“FLOWERS ON THE WALL”
(Lewis DeWitt)
Columbia 43315
No. 4 January 8, 1966
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These boys are neither Statlers nor brothers, but they are the undisputed kings of country group
harmony. The Statlers won the Country Music Association’s “Group of the Year” award for every year
between 1972 and 1977, and again in 1979 and 1980. More than 60 of their singles have made Billboard’s
C & W charts, and a dozen of their LPs have made contact with the top pop albums listings. Their 1975
“Best of” compilation has reportedly sold more than 2,000,000 copies, and is still in print. Since 1970,
the Statler Brothers have been throwing an Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Celebration in Staunton,
Virginia, that in the mid’90s has been drawing more than 90,000 people, making it the largest annual
country-music festival in the world.
Bass singer Harold Wilson Reid (b. Aug. 31,1939, Augusta County, Va.), tenor Lew C. DeWitt (b. March 8,
1938, Roanoke County), and baritone Philip E. Balsley (b. Phillip Elwood, Aug. 8, 1939, Augusta County)
started singing together in 1955 at the Lyndhurst Methodist Church in Staunton. They were the
Kingsmen, gospel groovers with a unique sound and they knew it, but in 1958, they went their separate
ways. Two years later, they reorganized, adding a lead singer–Harold’s younger brother Donald Sydney
Reid (b. June 5,1945, Staunton).
Their big break came in 1963, when the group met Johnny Cash backstage at Watermelon Park in
Berryville, Virginia. Cash eventually added the boys to his traveling show, let them appear on his TV
show and soon introduced them to the bigwigs at Columbia. Figuring the “Man in Black” knew where
of he boasted, Columbia signed the singing act, which had switched over to secular music. For nearly
two years, their vinyl issuances vanished without much notice. Columbia was about to cut the Statlers
loose when Cash snuck them in on one of his recording sessions to cut “Flowers On The Wall.” This
nonsense number about languishing love won two Grammys–the Statlers were voted “Best New Country
Group,”and their smash won “Best Contemporary Performance by a Country Group.”
“I really shouldn’t be saying this to a professional journalist,” Harold once admitted to Country Music’s
Patrick Carr, “but we just ain’t got no hook. We’re patriotism and nostalgia and Mom and apple pie, and
that’s it. What more can you say? We’re the Bland Brothers.”
Where did the “Statler Brothers” name come from, anyway? As Harold told Rick Marschall in The
Encyclopedia of Country and Western Music, “We could just as easily have become the Kleene Brothers.”
You see, when holed up in a shabby hotel and in need of a new name, one of the brothers happened to
notice a box of Statler facial tissues.
Between 1965 and 1993, the Statlers have receved more than 80 awards, from the American Music Awards,
Country Music Awards, Country Music News…70+ singles have won positions on Billboard’s Country
charts; four such 45s have garnered the number one slot: “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine” (1978),
“Elizabeth” (1983), “My Only Love” (1984), “Too Much On My Heart.”
The Statler Brothers’ line-up has remained the same for all these years, except for the departure of Lew
DeWitt in 1982 for reasons of ill health. Lew went on to record one solo album, On My Own. His
replacement was Jimmy Fortune (b. Lester James Fortune, March 11, 1955, Newport News, Virginia).
Currently, the Statler’s host their own show on the Nashville Network. Lew DeWitt died from Crohn’s
disease on August 15, 1990.