HAROLD REID of the STATLER BROTHERS died on Friday . . . and it didn't have anything to do with the coronavirus.
A post on the group's website said that he'd "bravely endured a long battle with kidney failure." He was 80. Harold was the bass singer in the group, and he's a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
The Statler Brothers formed back in the '50s, and originally they were strictly a gospel group . . . but that changed in 1964, when they began singing backup for Johnny Cash.
The Statler Brothers song "We Got Paid by Cash" was written as a tribute to Johnny, for discovering and mentoring them.
For the younger country fans out there: Despite their name, no member has the surname Statler . . . and only two of them are actual BROTHERS: Harold and DON REID, who was the lead singer.
They named themselves after a brand of tissues they had noticed in a hotel room, and they once joked that they could've been named "The Kleenex Brothers."