THE STATLER BROTHERS STARTED IN CHURCH. WHEN THE GROUP ENDED, JIMMY FORTUNE WENT BACK TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN — AND SANG FOR THE ONE AUDIENCE THAT NEVER LEAVES. He was a kid from Nelson County, Virginia — one of nine siblings, singing for nickels in first grade. In 1981, Statler Brothers tenor Lew DeWitt heard him at a ski resort and told the group: “This is the guy.” Jimmy Fortune was 26 years old. He joined as a temporary fill-in. He never left. In 21 years, he wrote three of the group’s only #1 hits — “Elizabeth,” “My Only Love,” and “Too Much on My Heart.” He sang at the White House twice. He was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Then in 2002, the Statler Brothers said goodbye. The other three went home. Jimmy stood alone on a stage for the first time in two decades — terrified. But he had one foot in country and the other in gospel, and he knew which direction to walk. He said it best: “I haven’t completed my mission from God to deliver music to people in need.” So he kept singing — not for charts, but for something higher. – Country Music
Before Jimmy Fortune ever stood beneath the bright lights of a theater, before the standing ovations and the gold records, there was a small church in Virginia.
Jimmy Fortune grew up in Nelson County, Virginia, one of nine children in a family that did not have much money but had plenty of music. The first audience Jimmy Fortune ever sang for was not a crowd in Nashville or a television camera. It was a few people sitting in wooden pews on a Sunday morning.
Jimmy Fortune once joked that he started singing for nickels in first grade. But even as a child, there was something different in his voice. It carried the sound of the mountains where he grew up. It sounded honest. It sounded like somebody who believed every word he sang.
A Chance Meeting Changed Everything
For years, Jimmy Fortune played anywhere he could. Small clubs. Local fairs. Ski resorts. He was talented, but like so many singers, he was still waiting for the break that might never come.
Then one night in 1981, everything changed.
Lew DeWitt, the original tenor singer for The Statler Brothers, heard Jimmy Fortune performing at a ski resort. Lew DeWitt was sick and could no longer travel with the group full-time. The Statler Brothers needed somebody to step in for a few shows.
After hearing Jimmy Fortune sing, Lew DeWitt reportedly told the others:
“This is the guy.”
Jimmy Fortune was only 26 years old. He joined The Statler Brothers as a temporary replacement.
He stayed for the next 21 years.
The Voice Behind Some of The Statler Brothers’ Biggest Songs
Jimmy Fortune did much more than fill a spot in the group. Over time, Jimmy Fortune became one of the driving forces behind The Statler Brothers’ later success.
Jimmy Fortune wrote three of the group’s few number-one songs: “Elizabeth,” “My Only Love,” and “Too Much on My Heart.”
“Elizabeth” was inspired by Jimmy Fortune’s admiration for Elizabeth Taylor. The Statler Brothers almost did not record it. But once they did, the song became one of the most beloved hits of their career.
Jimmy Fortune’s voice helped carry The Statler Brothers into a new chapter. Together, the group sang at the White House twice. They became members of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. For millions of fans, The Statler Brothers sounded complete because Jimmy Fortune was there.
But nothing lasts forever.
When The Statler Brothers Said Goodbye
In 2002, after decades together, The Statler Brothers decided to retire.
For Harold Reid, Don Reid, and Phil Balsley, retirement meant going home. They had spent their lives on the road and were finally ready to stop.
Jimmy Fortune was different.
Jimmy Fortune had joined the group later. Jimmy Fortune was younger. And suddenly, after more than two decades of singing beside three other voices, Jimmy Fortune found himself standing alone.
The first time Jimmy Fortune walked onto a stage by himself, he admitted he was terrified.
There was no harmony behind him. No familiar faces standing beside him. For the first time in 21 years, every note depended on him alone.
Jimmy Fortune could have stopped there. Jimmy Fortune had already accomplished more than most singers ever dream of.
But something inside Jimmy Fortune would not let him quit.
Going Back to Where It All Began
Jimmy Fortune often says that his life has always had one foot in country music and one foot in gospel.
After The Statler Brothers ended, Jimmy Fortune slowly began leaning back toward the place where everything had started: church.
Jimmy Fortune began singing more gospel music. Jimmy Fortune recorded hymns, performed in churches, and shared the stories behind the songs. The crowds were smaller than the arenas. There were no television cameras. Sometimes there were only a few dozen people in the room.
But Jimmy Fortune did not seem to mind.
Because Jimmy Fortune believed he still had a reason to sing.
“I haven’t completed my mission from God to deliver music to people in need.”
That sentence explains almost everything about Jimmy Fortune.
Jimmy Fortune was never chasing fame for its own sake. Jimmy Fortune loved the songs, but even more than that, Jimmy Fortune loved what the songs could do for people. A song could comfort somebody who had lost a loved one. A song could remind somebody they were not alone. A song could help a stranger hold on for one more day.
And so Jimmy Fortune kept going.
Today, Jimmy Fortune still sings. Sometimes it is in a concert hall. Sometimes it is in a small church, not far from the kind of room where Jimmy Fortune first learned to sing as a boy.
The Statler Brothers may be gone, but Jimmy Fortune never really left the place where his story began.
Jimmy Fortune simply went home — and discovered that the most faithful audience is the one that never leaves.
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The Four Men Nashville Could Never Control
Johnny Cash sang for prisoners. Willie Nelson sang for farmers. Waylon Jennings sang for rebels. Kris Kristofferson sang for the broken.
Together, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson sang for everyone Nashville had forgotten.
Long before anyone called them a supergroup, the four men were already legends in separate corners of country music. Johnny Cash had become the dark voice of people living on the edge. Willie Nelson was the restless songwriter with braids, a beat-up guitar, and a stubborn belief that country music should sound like real life. Waylon Jennings had spent years fighting producers, labels, and anyone who tried to tell him what to sing. Kris Kristofferson had walked away from a future that looked safe and respectable just to chase songs.
None of them needed the others to become famous.
But fame was never the point.
Four Different Roads
Johnny Cash built his legend by going where other stars refused to go. In 1968, Johnny Cash walked into Folsom Prison and stood in front of hundreds of inmates. The room was loud, tense, and uncertain. Then Johnny Cash began to sing. The prisoners heard something they almost never heard from the outside world: respect.
Johnny Cash did not talk down to them. Johnny Cash sang to them like they mattered.
Years later, Willie Nelson would do something similar for struggling farm families. In the 1980s, small-town America was collapsing under debt, drought, and impossible bills. While politicians argued and banks closed in, Willie Nelson organized Farm Aid.
Willie Nelson stood on stage and refused to let those families disappear quietly.
Waylon Jennings was fighting a different battle. Nashville wanted polished records, matching suits, and songs chosen by someone in an office. Waylon Jennings wanted freedom. Waylon Jennings wanted rough edges, loud guitars, and songs that sounded like the truth.
When Waylon Jennings finally won the right to record music his own way, outlaw country was born.
Kris Kristofferson may have taken the strangest road of all. Kris Kristofferson had a Rhodes Scholarship. Kris Kristofferson had military experience and every reason to choose a life that looked easier and safer.
Instead, Kris Kristofferson came to Nashville with almost nothing. Kris Kristofferson worked odd jobs and even swept floors in a recording studio while trying to get someone to hear the songs.
Those songs eventually became classics. But they never lost the sadness, honesty, and humanity that Kris Kristofferson carried with him from the beginning.
“We were all different. But somehow, we understood each other.”
The Night Everything Changed
In 1985, the four men came together in one room to record a song called Highwayman.
It did not begin with a grand plan. There was no carefully designed marketing campaign. No label executive dreamed up the idea in a conference room.
The song worked because the friendship was real.
Each man took one verse. Johnny Cash sang as a highwayman. Willie Nelson sang as a sailor. Kris Kristofferson sang as a dam builder. Waylon Jennings finished the story as a starship captain floating through the universe.
Four verses. Four lives. Four men who had survived addiction, bankruptcy, heartbreak, loneliness, and the pressure of being famous.
When they stood around the microphone, it felt like more than a recording session. It felt like four old friends telling the story of everything they had survived.
The single reached number one. Soon, the group had a name: The Highwaymen.
For the next decade, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson toured together, laughed together, and carried each other through difficult years. They teased each other in interviews. They traded stories backstage. They stood side by side even when age and hard living began to catch up with them.
The Last Highway
Waylon Jennings died in 2002. Johnny Cash died in 2003. Kris Kristofferson died years later, leaving behind one of the most remarkable lives country music had ever seen.
Now, Willie Nelson is the last Highwayman still standing.
At 92, Willie Nelson still walks onto stages with the same quiet smile and the same old guitar. The crowds cheer for Willie Nelson, but they are cheering for all four men too.
Because The Highwaymen were never just a band.
The Highwaymen were proof that friendship can outlast fame. That country music can belong to prisoners, farmers, rebels, and broken hearts all at once. That sometimes the people Nashville tries hardest to control become the ones history remembers forever.