The song was “Flowers on the Wall”, recorded by the Statler Brothers on March 13, 1965, at Columbia’s studio in Nashville. The recording time that day had been booked for Johnny Cash, but Johnny Cash was not the one who stepped up to the microphone. The four young men who sang behind him did, and that session changed their lives.
Four Singers From Staunton
Before that day in Nashville, the Statler Brothers were a gospel-rooted quartet from Staunton, Virginia: Harold Reid, his younger brother Don Reid, Phil Balsley and Lew DeWitt. They had sung around their hometown for years, often for very little money and sometimes for none at all.
Their big break came through Johnny Cash. Harold Reid introduced himself to Johnny Cash at a show in Roanoke in 1963, and the group was soon part of the Johnny Cash road show. By 1964 they were opening his concerts and singing harmony behind him on stage, and Johnny Cash helped them land a deal with Columbia Records.
A Session Without Its Star
On March 13, 1965, everything was ready at Columbia’s Nashville studio. Producers Don Law and Frank Jones were there. Johnny Cash’s own band, the Tennessee Three, was there. The one person missing was Johnny Cash himself.
Accounts differ on why. Many tellings say Johnny Cash simply did not show up for the session. Another version says he left suddenly to get lunch, and the Statler Brothers used the gap to show the musicians the chords to their own song. Either way, the result was the same. Columbia let the four singers use the time, and the Tennessee Three played behind them.
The song they chose had been written by their tenor, Lew DeWitt. It was witty and a little sad, sung by a man who insists that he is getting along fine on his own when every detail suggests the opposite.
From Borrowed Time to a Grammy
“Flowers on the Wall” turned into the hit nobody in that studio could have planned. It reached No. 2 on the country chart and stayed there for weeks, crossed over to No. 4 on the pop chart, and won a Grammy Award. The Statler Brothers’ debut album, also called Flowers on the Wall, was recorded the same unusual way, in between takes during Johnny Cash’s own album sessions.
The hit did not pull them away from their boss. The Statler Brothers stayed with Johnny Cash for about eight and a half years. They toured the world with him and appeared regularly on The Johnny Cash Show on ABC.
A Thank-You in Song
The Statler Brothers never forgot who opened the door. Harold Reid and Don Reid wrote “We Got Paid by Cash,” a song looking back on their years with the Man in Black. In 1980 they sang it with Johnny Cash himself on the TV special Johnny Cash: The First 25 Years.
Many years later, Don Reid still spoke of his old boss with real admiration:
“I think John is one of the greatest country writers there ever was.”
The Song That Kept Coming Back
“Flowers on the Wall” did not fade with the 1960s. The Statler Brothers re-recorded it in 1975, and that version reached a new generation in 1994 when Quentin Tarantino used it in Pulp Fiction. In one scene, Bruce Willis’s character sings along to it while driving. Nancy Sinatra recorded a cover, and Eric Heatherly took the song back into the country Top Ten in 2000.
Lew DeWitt, the man who wrote it, left the group in 1982 because of illness and died in 1990. His song outlived his years on the road with the group. In 2008, the Statler Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Why the Story Still Matters
The day in Nashville ended up with the right people at the microphone. Johnny Cash had given four singers from Staunton a place on his stage. When his studio time went unused, they filled it with a song of their own, and the backup singers became stars.