When the Statler Brothers called Jimmy Fortune in 1982, it was not because the group was looking for a fresh voice. It was because their tenor, Lew DeWitt, was battling Crohn’s disease and could no longer keep up with the demands of the road. Fortune, then a young singer performing at a ski resort, stepped in as a temporary replacement. His first show with the group was January 28, 1982.
By August, he was a permanent member. Fortune had spent years chasing a music career after growing up in Virginia, singing in the Nelson County High School choir and leaving school in 1973 to pursue his dream. The breakthrough did not come quickly. When it finally arrived, it came with a complicated emotional weight: he was taking the place of a man who was hurting.
Instead of simply filling in, Fortune made the role his own. Over the next 21 years, he became a defining part of the Statlers’ sound. He wrote several of the group’s biggest hits, including “Elizabeth,” “My Only Love,” and “Too Much on My Heart,” songs that reached number one and proved he was far more than a replacement singer. The group performed at the White House, and in 2008, Fortune stood alongside his bandmates as the Statler Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In 2002, the Statler Brothers retired, suddenly closing a chapter that had defined Fortune’s life for more than two decades. The end of that era, he later reflected in interviews, can be harder than people realize. When the applause stops and the familiar faces are no longer beside you every night, an artist is left wondering what comes next. Fortune did not disappear.
He launched a solo career, releasing country and gospel albums that increasingly centered on themes of faith, family, and the passage of time. His 2015 album *Hits and Hymns* reached the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. He also continued recording and performing with groups such as Brothers of the Heart. Some of his former bandmates are now gone.
Lew DeWitt passed away in 1990, and Harold Reid died in 2020 after serious health problems. Fortune, now 70, continues to write, tour, and record. His story, as he tells it, is not simply about getting older. It is about watching an entire era disappear — the stages, the voices, the friendships, the moments that once felt permanent.
Through it all, Fortune has kept singing. The awards and hit songs remain part of his legacy, but what may last longest is the fact that after decades of change, his music still carries the memories of people and places that can never return.
