The song is “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine,” written by Don Reid and Harold Reid and released by The Statler Brothers in March 1978. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart dated May 27, 1978, and held the spot a second week. It was the group’s 27th country hit, and the first to go all the way.
It was also the only No. 1 the Statlers ever had with Lew DeWitt, the tenor who had been singing with Harold Reid and Phil Balsley since their teenage years in Staunton, Virginia.
Thirteen years at the edge of the top
The wait began with a song Lew DeWitt wrote himself. “Flowers on the Wall” climbed to No. 2 on the country chart and No. 4 on the pop chart in 1965, and it won the group two Grammys.
Hit after hit followed. Starting in 1972, the CMA named the Statlers Vocal Group of the Year six years running. Still, nothing reached the top of the Billboard country chart until 1978, the same year the CMA award went to someone else.
The song that finally did it tells a simple story. A young woman in the crowd walks up and asks the band whether they know the old standard “You Are My Sunshine,” and whether they would play it for her one more time. The singer never forgets her and keeps looking for her everywhere he goes.
The tenor who was sick the whole time
According to the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Lew DeWitt lived with a stomach ailment for years before doctors, during a tour in the mid-1960s, diagnosed regional enteritis, a form of Crohn’s disease. He had surgery. The attacks were severe enough that the group sometimes had to cancel or postpone shows.
Because stress could trigger his symptoms, the other three Statlers took over his non-musical duties for the band. By the time they reached No. 1, they had been working around his illness for more than a decade.
He chose the man who would replace him
In November 1981, after a tour in California, Lew DeWitt was admitted to the hospital. He told the group he would need a long recovery, and he recommended a young Nelson County, Virginia, singer named Jimmy Fortune to fill in.
Lew DeWitt came back in 1982 to help finish the album The Legend Goes On. His last appearance with the Statler Brothers came on June 7, 1982, when the group hosted the Music City News Awards. His symptoms returned. Late that month he told the others he was retiring, and Jimmy Fortune took the tenor spot for good.
The Statlers went back to No. 1 three more times: “Elizabeth” in 1984, then “My Only Love” and “Too Much on My Heart” in 1985. Jimmy Fortune wrote all three.
Where the records don’t agree
“First No. 1” depends on which chart you read. On Billboard’s country chart, the 1978 single was the first, but some chart references list “Flowers on the Wall” at No. 1 on Canada’s RPM chart in 1965.
Accounts of Lew DeWitt’s return also differ. The Dictionary of Virginia Biography says he rejoined in April 1982 to finish the album. Wikipedia, citing the Reid brothers’ book Random Memories, says he came back in June and lasted less than a week. Both agree June 1982 was the end.
The cause of death is reported two ways as well. The Associated Press said in 1990 that he died of Crohn’s disease; the Virginia biography lists heart and kidney disease.
After the Statlers
Lew DeWitt kept singing. He formed the Star City Band, played a lighter schedule, and released solo records in the mid-1980s. He retired from music in 1989 and died at his home near Waynesboro, Virginia, on August 15, 1990. He was 52.
In 1992, Waynesboro named Lew DeWitt Boulevard in his honor. In 2008, he entered the Country Music Hall of Fame as a Statler Brother.
Twenty-six hits came before that spring of 1978. When the Statlers finally reached the top, the high voice riding over the harmony was his. Do you remember where you were when you first heard it?