Day 8 – Sept 6 (Statler Brother Revisited)

The show last night was pretty good.  The show is relatively new; they did shows last year and then took the last few summer months off and last night was their first night back.  You could tell they were a little out of practice.  The emcee (more on him later - seemed to forget the words to a couple of songs!).  They only do this show 2 nights per week as they all have other work as well.

There were 4 guys in the group.  One is brand new to the group this year; he manages a shoe store at the outlet mall when not singing with the group.  Two of the guys are involved in or have their own shows that perform at other times.  The guy that brought the group together (he his a publisher/editor during the day) was the emcee had an interesting story.

The Statler brothers starting in 1955 as a trio when they were all in high school.  The emcee started singing with another group of guys in 1956 and stayed with them for 6 years and finally decided they were never going to make it big and told them he was quitting and recommended they do the same thing.  That group he was singing with was the Oak Ridge Boys – some of you may be familiar with that group!

They also shared some interesting facts and information about the Statler Brothers:

·         Only 2 of the members were brothers, their last name was not Statler

·         The Statler Brothers name came after they had another name selected but found out another group was also using the same name and was more popular than them, so they had to change it.  They were sitting around trying to come up with a new name and they saw a box of tissues on the fireplace mantle with the Statler Tissue and one of the members suggested they become the Statler Brothers and it stuck.

·         They were CMA group of the year for 9 straight years

·         Over the years there were only 5 members that were part of the group.  One of the original members got sick and had to leave, his request was that he was able to pick his replacement which he did.  Oak Ridge Boys have had over 40 people as member of their group during their time.

·         All the songs they recorded were written by one or more members of the group.

·         The Statler Brothers retired in 2002 and have never done any more shows, recording etc.  They all live in Virginia which has always been their home.

·         The first and last song they ever sang was Amazing Grace.  Gospel music was a key part to all of their music.

It is almost 8:00 in the morning now.  Time to finishing packing up camp and hitting the road.  More latter on today's ride.