On April 24, 2026, six years to the day after Harold Reid of the Statler Brothers died, Wilson Fairchild released American Songbook: Country Classics and Gospel Favorites through Gaither Music Group. Wilson Fairchild is Harold’s son Wil Reid and his cousin Langdon Reid, the son of Harold’s younger brother Don. On the companion DVD, the two cousins sing “I’ll Go to My Grave Loving You,” the song Don wrote in the 1970s, and their own sons, Jack and Davis Reid, stand in the harmony with them.
The announcements never said whether the date was picked on purpose. For anyone who grew up with the Statlers, the calendar and the song say enough either way.
The Song Don Wrote and Harold Anchored
The Statler Brothers first recorded “I’ll Go to My Grave Loving You” on May 15, 1974, and Mercury released it as a single in May 1975. Jerry Kennedy produced it. Don Reid sang lead, Phil Balsley baritone, Lew DeWitt tenor, and Harold held down the bottom of the chord on bass.
The record reached No. 3 on Billboard’s country chart, went to No. 1 on the Canadian RPM country chart, and even crossed onto the Hot 100.
The song also has a gospel twin. Harold wrote “He Went to the Cross Loving You,” set to the same melody, and the Statlers recorded that too. Sources disagree on which version came first, but the two brothers’ names sit on either side of the same tune: Don’s love song and Harold’s hymn. Wilson Fairchild has since recorded both.
Two Boys Who Grew Up on the Bus
Wil and Langdon grew up on the road with their fathers, in the years when the Statlers were winning CMA Vocal Group of the Year again and again and later hosting the top-rated show on The Nashville Network. The cousins started writing songs together as teenagers. Wil has said their fathers mentored them as writers and kept making them rework a song until it was right.
They formed a duo in the 1990s called Grandstaff, then renamed themselves Wilson Fairchild after their middle names: Wil is Harold Wilson Reid II, and Langdon is Langdon Fairchild Reid. They spent nearly four years opening shows for George Jones.
Being Statler sons was a gift and a weight. Talking to The Roanoke Times in 2012, Wil admitted the hardest part was getting audiences past the family resemblance.
Our voices kind of sound like our dads.
A Surprise for Their Dads at the Hall of Fame
In 2007 the Statler Brothers were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. In 2008 they entered the Country Music Hall of Fame, making them only the sixth act to belong to both. Ahead of those honors, Wil and Langdon wrote “The Statler Brothers Song” as a surprise for their fathers.
At the medallion ceremony in Nashville on June 29, 2008, Brenda Lee presented the Statlers with their medal. Reba McEntire and Dailey & Vincent performed in their honor, and so did Grandstaff, the two sons singing their tribute with Harold and Don in the room. Don told the Associated Press the honor topped off everything the group had worked for.
Songs Our Dads Wrote
In February 2017, Wilson Fairchild released Songs Our Dads Wrote, nine songs co-written by Harold and Don, plus the cousins’ own “The Statler Brothers Song.” Wil described it as the family legacy: the music the two of them had learned to sing and play on as boys.
Three years later, on April 24, 2020, Harold Reid died in his hometown of Staunton, Virginia, after a long battle with kidney failure. He was 80. His nephew Debo Reid, another of Don’s sons, shared the news and said Harold left behind a big family and millions of fans who still grin when they remember his comedy.
The Night at The Mulehouse
American Songbook was produced by Michael Sykes and Johnny Minick. The DVD holds 15 performances filmed live at The Mulehouse in Columbia, Tennessee. The album reaches back to the records the cousins heard growing up, from Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” to “Me and Bobby McGee,” with a nod to the Statlers on “Hello Mary Lou.”
“I’ll Go to My Grave Loving You” appears on the DVD, where Jack and Davis join their fathers. The two younger Reids are in their twenties. They already tour as a duo, released their own album, On the Road Education, in 2025, and now share a stage with Wil and Langdon in a show billed as The Statler Experience.
Langdon summed up the family inheritance in one line when the album was announced.
Country music is our first language. Harmony was our second.
Don, at Home in Staunton
It started with four young men from Staunton who were often paying $10 for the chance to sing. At the 1963 Roanoke Fair, Johnny Cash heard them and hired them on a handshake. Around the same time, on the road, Don noticed a box of Statler brand tissues in a hotel room, and the group had its name. He has joked they could have been the Kleenex Brothers.
Don Reid is 81 now and still lives in Staunton. Since the Statlers stopped touring in 2002 he has written more than ten books, among them Random Memories with Harold and The Music of the Statler Brothers: An Anthology. In 2023 he told Virginia Living that the only singing he does now is in church on Sunday.
The rest of the harmony he and Harold built is out on the road, carried by four Reids who learned every part of it at home.