It was the time when Johnny Cash became an overnight success with his song “Ring of Fire,” he met four young men on stage at the Roanoke Fair in Virginia.
After paying a small amount for their vocals those men were known as the Statler Brothers and they were hired “on a handshake,” and explored with the “Man in Black” for almost 10 years, motivating their song “We Got Paid by Cash.”
In 1963, when the Kingsmen’s song touched the top of the charts, titled “Louie Louie,” the other Kingsmen, from Virginia, had to change the name of their quartet.
The four boys Don and Harold Reid, Phil Balsley and Lew DeWitt, were exploring, in a hotel room pitching out some new names, to separate their band from the Oregon-based quintet.
Don told the Virginia publication that his eyes struck first on the Statler brand tissue box kept in that room.
The name glued.
“We could have been the Kleenex Brothers,” Don said of the new era of two brothers and two friends, now familiar as the Statler Brothers.
In the same year, the Statler Brothers, whose country sounds mixed with gospel harmonies, were playing at the Roanoke Fair in Salem, Virginia when they sought the attention of the legendry Johhny Cash.
At that time Cash was promoting his 16th album at the Salem Fairgrounds and hired them “on a handshake.”
“John was a walkin’, talkin’, singin’ musical encyclopedia,” Reid said.
Over the next 10 years, the “Class of ‘57” singers traveled recorded, and came on TV with Cash, who helped the young men become Columbia’s best pop-music composer.
“Flowers on the Wall” is a masterpiece of blending traditional literature, which got top fame in pop-country music history. Beating out the Beatles’ “Help!” and the Supremes’ “Stop in the Name of Love,” the Statler Brothers got their first two Grammy Awards.
The song again exploded in 1994, with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s hit film Pulp Fiction. In one scene, “Flowers on the Wall” is piping from the car radio as Butch (played by Bruce Willis) runs down Samuel L. Jackson’s character.
The song is an addition to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, which sold millions of copies.
“Very few people have Bruce Willis help them,” Harold told the News Leader in 2015.
Only a few people knew that Cash had helped them.
“Being with him for those years was our education in the music business. We learned what to do, what not to do, and we left on the best of terms.” Reid said.
Over their 12-year run, the “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine?” singers released more than 40 albums and earned several awards as well as entered named, nine times, as the Country Music Association’s Vocal Group of the Year.
From 1988 to 1991 the group had its variety show at The Nashville Network (TNN). In 1992, the weekly show featuring the comedic talents of Harold, the charter member and one of the most popular on TNN reached its peak in the network’s history.
In an episode, an emotional song “More Than a Name on the Wall” was played and it caused tears in the audience not only those who were present there but also across America.
The song was written by Jimmy Fortune who replaced DeWitt due to some medical issue. Jimmy Fortune then died in 1990, the song consists of the story of the black polished Vietnam Memorial wall, that’s engraved with the names of 58,381 fallen soldiers.
Speaking with Strictly Country, “You look at it. You look at each one of those lines from a distance, you look at it and see those lines stacked on top of each other, and they seem like they go on forever, and forever, and forever,” he said of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. “I realized that was a mother’s child. That was someone’s husband. Just all the stories and all the memories of that child…It just hit me that they are more than a name on a wall.”
Fortune, who wrote and sang lead on the 1984 hit song “Elizabeth” added, “It was just such a profound statement. I made a mental note. I’ve got a write that.
In April 2020 Harold Reid passed away due to kidney failure.
Honestly speaking the Statler Brothers earned their name by singing melodious songs!!!!