It happened without warning — no fanfare, no spotlight, no program listing. Just a hushed murmur through the crowd as Don Reid, longtime frontman and lyricist of The Statler Brothers, quietly stepped onto the familiar stage at the Staunton Performing Arts Center, the same stage where he and Harold Reid once brought stories to life in four-part harmony.
But this time, he walked out alone.
Dressed in black, holding a single sheet of paper and visibly emotional, Don approached the mic and took a long pause. The room, filled with hometown fans and family, leaned in as he spoke.
“This was our stage… and tonight, I stand on it alone because he’s gone.”
What followed was not a concert, but a moment — raw, unrehearsed, unforgettable. Don began to read a poem he had written just days after Harold’s passing. A love letter between brothers. Between bandmates. Between two voices that once rose together and now… only one remains.
Then, with trembling hands, he picked up a guitar and softly sang a stripped-down verse of “My Only Love”, the Statlers’ classic ballad that Harold often introduced on tour.
You’re my only love, my only love
The sweetest gift life has ever known…
Don’s voice broke before the second chorus, and for a moment he just stood still — guitar hanging silent — as he looked toward the empty space beside him, the space Harold once filled.
“I can still hear his bass,” he whispered. “I always will.”
The crowd never clapped. They couldn’t. Many were crying. Some held their breath. Because what they witnessed wasn’t a performance — it was a farewell. A man returning to the place where it all began, only to face the silence that remains.
He ended the tribute with just one line:
“We began here… and tonight, I close it for him.”
Then he placed his guitar gently on the stool, touched the microphone one last time, and walked offstage — leaving nothing behind but a room full of tears and a song that still hung in the air like a prayer.
It wasn’t about music.
It was about memory.
And Don Reid gave Staunton, and his brother, one last standing ovation —
not with applause…
but with love.
