Harold Reid in the Southern Quote

Harold was born August 21, 1939 in Augusta County, Virginia. As a young man he sang with three friends in a church trio. Five years later, his young brother Bob came on board and the quartet began performing gospel music under the name the Kingsmen.

The group’s first big break came when they opened a concert for a popular entertainer and earned his admiration in the process. The man in black invited them to join his tour. Taking themselves a new name, chosen from a box of hotel tissues, The Statler Brothers hit the road and spent the next eight years traveling with Johnny Cash.

Harold was known as the group’s resident clown, but he also used his strong organizational skills to write much of the humor they used on stage, to supervise their album covers, and to coordinate their bookings. The Statler Brothers officially retired in 2002. They played their last concert in Salem, VA, not far from where they got their start. In the intervening years they had earned the distinction of being one of the most successful vocal harmony groups in the history of country music with countless hits including, “Bed of Roses,” “Pictures” and “Do You Remember These”.

They were known for performing classic, down home country music that celebrated faith and family. In today’s Southern Quote we hear strains of the appreciation they shared for the values we so badly need restored.

Harold Reid, former bass singer of the Statler Brothers once said, “The great white hats are gone. We’ve got action movies. We have adventure movies. You can upset 28 cars. You can set a whole town on fire. But you don’t have the heroes. You don’t have the guy in the white hat that steps on that horse with the silver saddle. And you look at him and say, “Man, I want to be like that.” We don’t have that anymore.”