The group produced more than 50 albums for 40 years. The Statler Brothers won Grammy Awards three times and were named the top vocal group by the Country Music Association nine times. They even had a cable television show, “The Statler Brothers Show,” which aired for seven seasons throughout the 1990s.
In 1955, four childhood friends from Staunton, Virginia, started singing gospel music at local churches. Harold Reid, Lew DeWitt, Phil Balsley, and Joe McDorman were under the name the Four Star Quartet.
In 1958, the group changed their name to the Kingsmen, and by 1962, McDorman had been replaced by Reid’s brother Don. Eventually, the group settled on a new moniker, The Statler Brothers, to avoid confusion with other groups called the Kingsmen. The group picked its working name on an impulse, out a box of Statler facial tissues. Don Reid jokingly said: “We could just as easily be known as the Kleenex Brothers.”
And the real ride began in the early 1960s. The quartet switched to country music in 1964, after they met Cash and joined his roadshow.
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