The Wilburn Brothers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (November 2006)

This article does not cite any references or sources. (January 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The Wilburn Brothers are a popular country music duo from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The duo consisted of brothers Doyle Wilburn (July 7, 1930 - October 16, 1982) and Teddy Wilburn (November 30, 1931 - November 24, 2003). They were born in Hardy, Arkansas. They were child performers in an act called The Wilburn Family that were brought to the Grand Ole Opry by Roy Acuff in the 1940s. Due to the child labor laws the Wilburns were forced to leave the Grand Ole Opry after only 6 months.

They continued to travel and were regulars on the similar Louisiana Hayride program from 1948-51. After the family act disbanded, and the brothers served stints in the US Army during the Korean War, they continued on in country music as The Wilburn Brothers and had their first hit record in 1954 titled "Sparkling Brown Eyes".

Their other hits include "Go Away With Me" (1956), "Which One is to Blame" (1959), "Trouble's Back in Town" (1962), "It's Another World" (1965), and "Hurt Her Once for Me" (1967). They were Opry members from 1953 until the time of Doyle's death in 1982 (at the age of 52) and Teddy continued on at the Opry as a solo artist until his own death in 2003 (six days before he would have turned 72).

The Wilburn Brothers had a long-running syndicated television show, The Wilburn Brothers Show, that ran from 1963 to 1974 and produced 354 half hour episodes. Reruns of their show can still be seen on RFD-TV In addition to being successful artists, the Wilburns formed the Wil-helm Talent Agency (with Don Helms) and the Surefire Music Publishing Company. They were instrumental in launching the careers of many country music legends, most notably Loretta Lynn whom they signed to their music publishing company at the beginning of her career. Lynn was the "girl singer" of the Wilburns touring radio show in the 1960s and she made weekly appearances on their television show until 1971. They are both buried in the in the Nashville National Cemetery in Nashville, TN.