Tenor singer a longtime Statler Brother
You never really know what God is going to do with a song, confided Jimmy Fortune about how several of his songs have resonated with listeners over the years.
Fortune, a longtime member of famed country-gospel vocal group The Statler Brothers, has performed solo and with his own band since the Statlers’ official retirement as a group in 2002.
He will bring songs and stories from his 40-plus-year career in music to Ellijay’s Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sunday, March 8.
“It’s been a long journey. I was playing music before The Statler Brothers hired me when I was 26. I’m almost 65 now and still out here going at it, touring all over the country,” said Fortune on his way to a show in Texas.
“I still have a good time with my music even though all the traveling gets hard sometimes. I try to keep the fun in my music because if I’m not enjoying it, I don’t want to do it. A person has got to have a purpose and mine is my music.”
‘True- life stories written in song’
Fortune became a Statler Brother in 1982. A Virginia native like the group’s founding members — bass and lead singers Harold and Don Reid (the only two actual brothers by birth), baritone Phil Balsley and original tenor singer Lew DeWitt — he was handpicked by DeWitt as his replacement when the group’s founding tenor singer and guitarist had to bow out due to a battle with Crohn’s disease.
“I’m from the same area as them, about 40 miles (away). The Statlers were bigger than life in that area because they were the only group from Virginia that had made it and gotten out in the mainstream world,” Fortune said.
“I knew their songs and I’d sing along when they came on the radio. Since I was a tenor singer I’d always lean toward Lew’s parts, so I was very familiar with the Statler Brothers when they called me to come audition. It was almost like it was meant to be, like a God thing he put together. There are God things that happen in your life you’ll never understand.”
The years that followed proved to be one of the busiest and furthest-reaching for the veteran singing group, which used strong four-part harmony vocals as its lead instrument.
By that time, they’d already recorded a slew of hit songs including “Flowers on The Wall,” “Bed of Roses” and “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott” after touring extensively as backing vocalists for Johnny Cash. Fortune’s youthful energy and desire to write songs for the group brought them three number one hits that were followed by a new pop culture presence for the Statlers with music videos and their own TV variety show.
“I just fit in and the blend was there. Not only the vocal blend, but the blend of personalities and the things we believed in like God, family and country. That’s the way we lived our lives,” Fortune said. “I went to them and asked if I wrote some songs, would they record any of them. They said they would if the songs were good enough. Of course, they also told me if they weren’t good enough they wouldn’t do that.”
“Elizabeth,” the first hit song Fortune penned, was followed by two more chart-toppers, “My Only Love” and “Too Much on My Heart.” Reaching number one on the Billboard country charts in 1983, a cover of the lovelorn ballad brought a Grammy nomination for bluegrass/gospel group Daily and Vincent in 2011.
With its soaring melody and lonesome lyrics, “Elizabeth” is a good example of how a song written fairly quickly, but with universal appeal, has had a life of its own in the years followed, Fortune noted.
“Fortunately, it was the first song I took to them. That’s another one of those God things and I give him all the credit in my life for where he’s gotten me today. He’s taken me to places I never dreamed I’d go,” Fortune said. “I already had the melody in my head, but I needed to put a name to it. How many people do you know in this world that have someone in their family named Elizabeth?”
To this day, he gladly hears stories from fans about their daughters, mothers or wives who share the name.
“We had watched a movie called Giant, which starred Elizabeth Taylor, on the way to Tulsa, Okla. She was so beautiful in that movie, but that name kept coming up at various points in my life. I was in the grocery store and heard a mother talk about her daughter named Elizabeth. When we got to Oklahoma, there was a girl who came up out of the audience and grabbed my hand and said, ‘I’m Elizabeth!’ It was like somebody was trying to tell me something,” he remembered about what inspired the song.
The Statler Brothers’ career spanned almost five decades, in which they earned the title of “the most awarded act in country music,” as well as inductions into the Country and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.
Fortune attributes much of their longevity to so many of the songs being easy to relate to, no matter where those listening may call home.
“They really appealed to their audience. They listened to their audience and didn’t step out of anything they would understand. It’s simplicity mixed with heartfelt emotions and how blessed we are to grow up in a place like America. I think the Statlers were Americana before (that genre) was ever invented,” he said.
“Take a song like ‘Class of 57,’ which is about growing up in America. Everybody in that song is real. We sang about happy things and also sad things, as well as stories of accomplishments. They were true-life stories written in song.”
Inspirational performer
Fortune has kept that same sense of hope and pride in the material he’s written and recorded since going solo. Some of his songs can be described as tearjerkers, but, at the heart, they also carry a positive message that often incorporates two of Fortune’s cornerstone principles in life — hope and forgiveness.
“I lean more toward the gospel end of it today because I feel like we need more love, understanding, forgiveness and hope instilled back into what’s going on out there. I’m not a preacher, but I do stress how good God has been to me in my life and what he’s done for my family. I’ve lived the American dream,” he said.
“I don’t do the drinking, cheating and partying type of country songs. A lot of singers do today, and I’m not putting them down for it, because that’s just how society is. I don’t want to do something my kids can’t look at one day and say that’s my dad. I’m proud of him. I try to write songs that speak about real, everyday life. I want to write something where people can go ‘I’ve felt that way before. I’ve been there.’”
The song “I Believe” fits that description, he related.
“It was inspired by my mother, who prayed for me a lot and brought my father back from alcoholism and me back from weaknesses in my own life to living the way I should,” Fortune said.
Church concerts aren’t that frequent for Fortune, but he’s happy when the opportunity comes along.
“I usually play in performing arts centers and we do lots of fairs, but I do perform at churches now and then. Lately I have been getting a lot of requests from churches to come and perform,” he said.
At the Ellijay show, he plans to perform a mix of secular and gospel songs, including his own and several from the Statler catalog.
His band will include guitarist and banjo player John Myer, fiddle and mandolin player Ryan Joseph, who also plays behind Alan Jackson, and Billy James, who was the Statlers’ bass player for many years.
“It will be a more intimate setting and a more acoustic driven show. I try to keep it stripped down so that people can hear the words and the stories. It’s more of a one-on-one type thing with the audience,” he said.
There will be plenty of harmony singing and storytelling, too, Fortune noted.
“I talk about (things like) my childhood and growing up in the church in Virginia. How we used to sing the old songs,” he said. “Listening to the radio in my dad’s car was the only way I had to hear (recorded) music as a kid. Some of the first songs from country music I ever heard were on that radio and that shaped my life.”
Admission to the concert is free, but a love offering will be accepted at the door, said Pleasant Grove congregation member Jerry Logan, who’s arranged for the concert to take place.
The church seats about 400, he added.
“I’m a longtime fan of his and I thought the church would get a blessing out of it. It will be in the sanctuary and it’s open to the public. I’m sponsoring it for the church and letting the church have the love offering,” Logan said.