The song was “Bed of Rose’s,” and Harold Reid wrote it. Before it became one of the Statler Brothers’ signature hits, it was a song nobody else in Nashville would record. Kenny Rogers came closest. Then he walked away from it too.
“Maybe we need to do it ourselves”
Years later, Don Reid sat down with Billboard in Staunton, Virginia, and told the story. His brother Harold had written the song and pitched it around town, the way songwriters did. Kenny Rogers was very interested in it. Then, because of the subject matter, he decided not to record it.
He was not the only one to pass. By Don’s account, the song came back from everyone Harold tried. So the Statlers decided to record it themselves.
“You know, everybody in town has turned it down, so maybe we need to do it ourselves.” — Don Reid, to Billboard
Don admitted the song went against the group’s image at the time. That was no small thing for four men who had started out singing gospel in churches. But Don also believed it was simply a good song.
What the song was about
The title is a play on words. A “bed of roses” means an easy life. Harold Reid’s story was anything but easy. The narrator is an orphaned teenage boy in a small town. The respectable, churchgoing people leave him in the street. The one person who takes him in is Rose, a woman the town calls scarlet.
Harold did not write her as a warning. He wrote her as the kindest person in town. The finger in the song points at the people who sat in church on Sunday and still left a boy to beg. In 1970, that was a risky thing for a country quartet to sing on the radio.
A group that needed a hit
The Statler Brothers took the risk at a moment when they could not afford many more misses. “Flowers on the Wall,” written by tenor Lew DeWitt, had made them stars in 1965. It spent a month at No. 2 on the country chart and won a Grammy. Two more Top 10 country hits followed in 1967.
Then the hits stopped. Their next three singles all missed the top half of the country chart. Around the turn of the decade, the Statlers left Columbia Records for Mercury, where Jerry Kennedy became their producer.
“Bed of Rose’s” was released in October 1970 as the first single and the title track of their first Mercury album.
The climb
The single entered the country chart on November 21, 1970, at No. 71. By coincidence, George Jones’ “A Good Year for the Roses” entered the same week.
“Bed of Rose’s” kept climbing into the winter and peaked at No. 9 early in 1971. It stayed on the chart for 17 weeks, the group’s longest run since their very first hit. It also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 58. No Statler single had made the pop chart since “Flowers on the Wall.” The album Bed of Rose’s went to No. 5 on the country albums chart.
It opened the door to everything that came next on Mercury: “Do You Remember These,” “The Class of ’57,” and a run of hits that lasted for the next two decades.
Harold’s grandson sings it now
Harold Reid died at home in Staunton on April 24, 2020, after a long battle with kidney failure. He was 80.
His song is still being sung by his own family. Jack Reid is the son of Wil Reid and the grandson of Harold. Davis Reid is the son of Langdon Reid and the grandson of Don. The two cousins perform together as Jack and Davis Reid. At a 2024 show in Covington, Virginia, they opened with Statler hits and closed with a gospel song, the way their grandfathers used to end a night.
They have also shared their own version of “Bed of Rose’s” with fans online. Their caption calls it “a huge hit for our grandfathers.” More than fifty years after Nashville turned it down, Harold’s grandson is singing it.