Thank you world for contributing founding Statler Brother Lew DeWitt

Clockwise from top left finds Statler Brothers bass vocalist-songwriter Harold Reid adjusting his long black socks, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters comedienne June Carter Cash, baritonist Phil Balsley, lead singer-songwriter Don Reid, and sunglasses-clad, tenor-guitarist-songwriter Lew DeWitt combating pre-show jitters in a makeshift backstage area — actually a kitchen — minutes before debuting with Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison on January 13, 1968, in Folsom, California. The subsequent live album climbed to number one country and crossed over to the pop charts for a staggering 123 weeks at No. 13. Photography by Jim Marshall / All About the Statlers [Facebook group]

“Flowers on the Wall” endures as “one of country music’s most vivid descriptions of a bitter reject trying to convince himself of his indifference toward his ex-lover,” AllMusic reviewer Vince Ripol convincingly insists. Cut during a March 1965 Johnny Cash session at Nashville’s Columbia Studio after the star suddenly left to grab some lunch, the Statler Brothers seized their unpredictable boss’s serendipitous opportunity and taught the other musicians the chords to “Flowers” as well as Tom T. Hall’s “The Ballad of Billy Christian.” The former was merely slated as the B-side until canny deejays flipped the record over, yielding a crossover Top Five pop record penned by guitarist Lew DeWitt. A natural tenor capable of making arm hairs salute, DeWitt composed two subsequent hits in the ’70s for the three-time Grammy-winning quartet nurtured on gospel music — the nostalgic “Pictures” and “The Movies.” Soon to be 30 years since DeWitt’s premature demise at age 52, Jimmy Fortune offers a fond remembrance of the clever, unassuming B-Western admirer who personally selected him as his permanent replacement in 1982 [catch up with part one of the interview entitled “Searching for Elvis Presley’s Humanity…” here].

The Jimmy Fortune Interview, Part Two