24
Aug

Some News and Thank Yous

Written by Don Reid. Posted in General

I had some news to bring and some thank yous to extend, so I thought it was time to write another blog and get a lot of this said at one time.

 

  • The Academy of Country Music will hold an Honors TV Show special to be aired September  9th on CBS.  It is being taped next week in Nashville at the Ryman.  Lots of folks will be in attendance getting achievement awards:

Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Crystal Gayle, Tanya Tucker and of course, The Statler Brothers (or I wouldn’t be writing to you about it, would I?), and others.

We are receiving the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award.  A little history:

Cliffie Stone was an early record executive who was responsible for most of the west coast country music that came alive in the 1960s.  He was a good and powerful man in the record industry.   One morning, pre “Flowers On The Wall”, we were in Hollywood on tour and Cliffie took the four of us to breakfast at the Brown Derby.  The purpose of all this was to offer us a job.  He said if you guys will move to L.A., I can promise that you will become ‘the’ backup group for every record act in town – rock, pop, blues and country.  You can buy houses in Malibu, drive in to work each day and never have to tour again.  You can live the good Southern California life, raise your kids here and have it made for life.  It was a tempting proposition but our answer was more shocking than even the offer.  We said, “Thanks but no thanks, Cliffie.  We’ll take our chances living in Virginia.”

So isn’t it befitting (or not) that we are receiving the ‘Cliffie’ Pioneer award!  We are certainly honored and humbled by it.

And just one quick answer to all who may see this special and ask the obvious question:

Jimmy and I will be there to accept the honor.  Harold and Phil will not.  These two guys are firmly and totally retired.  They no longer make appearances or do interviews and Jimmy and I feel they have every right to do exactly that. They have assuredly earned that privilege.  Bless them both!

 

  • And a shout out to WILSON/FAIRCHILD. Their new CD is called SONGS OUR DADS WROTE.  And what an album of emotion it is for bro Harold and me.  Wil and Langdon chose the songs and planned the project and kept it a total secret from us until they came and handed us the finished product.  Nine of the ten songs were co-written by Harold and myself (the 10th one was written by Wil and Langdon).  The performances, their picking and singing, are fantastic and the cover is worth the price of admission.  I can’t praise or recommend this enough.  When I’m in the audience and they’re on stage, they hold my heart in their hands.

 

 

  • And then there is the FAREWELL CONCERT. Our final stage performance from October 26, 2002.  It has been on the market for thirteen years (13) now and this month the DVD went back to Number 1 on the charts for the third time.   I mention this only so I can say thank you, thank you to all who have kept our memory alive and forefront.  You are good and loyal friends and fans and we love you dearly.

 

  • And now THE BEST OF THE STATLER BROTHERS TV SHOWS – SEASON ONE is out there and soaring. It’s all from the first season and I think it may bring back a few good memories for you from 1991-92. (A couple of the outfits I had on have brought back something besides ‘good’ memories, but other than that, I’m kinda having a good time watching them myself.)

 

 

For past blogs – donreid.net

For everything else – statlerbrothers.com

 

 

DSR  – 8/24/16

30
Jun

The Statler Brothers Show – TV Series

Written by Don Reid. Posted in General

 

 

So, this may be the blog I have been waiting decades to write.

But first, a little history.

 

It was the spring of 1991 when we started taping episodes for THE STATLER BROTHERS SHOW TV series in Nashville.  Even though our first guest was Barbara Mandrell as seen on the air, the first guest we actually taped was Conway Twitty.  We were great friends and tended to be pretty honest with each other.  When we finished the day’s taping, Conway looked at us and said, “This is really going to be a good show for you guys.  But why are you doing it?  It looks like a lot of work.”

We laughed about that comment then and still do because it was a lot of work.  We told CT then we were doing it just because it was something we had never done and that usually was reason enough for some of the things we tackled in our career.

 

The series lasted a full seven (7) seasons, always holding the #1 spot on the network, and from the time we taped our last show on February 13, 1998, it was in our minds to one day be able to  release them on video.  It was apparently in the minds of all our fans/friends because that has been the most requested thing in our mail for the last eighteen (18) years.  Research, legalities, lawyers, licenses fees for unions, publishers, songwriters and more than I can list here has taken a lot of time, but we can now sit back and take a deep breath.  It is done!

 

THE BEST OF THE STATLER BROTHERS TV SHOWS- SEASON ONE is now available on DVD.  Check it out at our website –  statlerbrothers.com    It is all Statler!  There are songs (75 of them).  Comedy routines (24 of them) and five (5) YESTERYEAR segments.  It consists of seven (7) DVDs.  I hope you will agree that it is the best of the Statler performances from season one.  It became obvious that to release all the performances of all our guests would have been cost prohibitive and an impossibility to clear for those in charge, but we certainly feel this package is the perfect essence of that Saturday night memory that became so much of the Americana scene of the ‘90s.

 

The Gaither Music Group is producing and marketing  the shows and you will be seeing that  pop up on your tv in the very near future.   Of course, you can get them immediately at our website as of now.

 

Hope you enjoy the music and the memories.  We certainly enjoyed making both.

Blessings to each one of you.

 

DSR              6/30/16