The Wilburn Brothers stood as country music’s final great sibling act, proving equally potent onstage and offstage through their polished harmonies on thirty chart singles, among them the enduring “Hurt Her Once for Me,” while also nurturing the careers of artists such as Loretta Lynn. Virgil Doyle Wilburn entered the world on July 7, 1930, in Hardy, AR; Thurman Theodore Wilburn arrived the following year on November 30. Their father Benjamin, a disabled World War I veteran, ordered a guitar, mandolin, and fiddle from the Sears, Roebuck catalog in hopes that public performances would ease the family’s financial strain. Together with older brothers Lester and Leslie and sister Geraldine, Doyle and Teddy launched their professional career as the Wilburn Family on a Thayer, MO, street corner on Christmas Eve 1937. For the next several years the children alternated six months in Hardy’s one-room schoolhouse with six months on the road, playing radio stations, school auditoriums, and churches across the South. A 1940 engagement in Birmingham, AL, brought them to the notice of Roy Acuff, who recommended them for the Grand Ole Opry; they joined the cast that spring, only to have their contract cut short six months later when child-labor advocates intervened. The family returned to Hardy and resumed touring until the United States entered World War II. After the war Geraldine married and left the road, while the four brothers continued performing. In 1948 they joined the cast of the Louisiana Hayride, where they became friends with an as-yet-unknown Webb Pierce. Both Doyle and Teddy were drafted for service in the Korean conflict in 1951. Upon discharge they resumed touring, but with Lester and Leslie now retired they carried on as the Wilburn Brothers. Pierce, by then an Opry regular, helped secure their return to the show; the siblings also accompanied him on tour and signed with his label, Decca. Their first substantial success came in mid-1954 with the Pierce collaboration “Sparkling Brown Eyes,” which remained on the charts for eighteen weeks and reached number four. They supplied uncredited backing vocals on Pierce’s landmark hit “In the Jailhouse Now” and made appearances on The Arthur Godfrey Talent Show and American Bandstand. Between 1955 and 1972 the Wilburn Brothers placed thirty titles on the charts, including “I Wanna Wanna Wanna,” “I’m So in Love With You,” “Go Away With Me,” “Which One Is to Blame,” “Trouble’s Back in Town,” “Roll Muddy River,” and their biggest seller, 1966’s “Hurt Her Once for Me.” They also recorded two Top Ten duets with Ernest Tubb, “Hey, Mr. Bluebird” and “Mister Love.” In the late 1950s the brothers joined steel guitarist Don Helms to establish the Wil-Helm Talent Agency, while persuading Lester and Leslie to manage the publishing firm Sure-Fire. These ventures aided the early careers of Sonny James, Jean Shepherd, the Osborne Brothers, and especially Loretta Lynn, who toured with the Wilburns and obtained her Decca contract under their guidance. The Wilburn Brothers launched their own weekly syndicated television series in 1963; one of the first country programs broadcast in color, The Wilburn Brothers Show continued through 1974 and introduced viewers to the Oak Ridge Boys, Tammy Wynette, and Barbara Mandrell. The siblings received the Music City News Duet of the Year award in 1967 and earned a Country Music Association Vocal Group of the Year nomination in 1972. Their final Decca album, Sing Hinson and Gaither, appeared in 1978. Doyle succumbed to cancer on October 16, 1982. “It was like a 45-year marriage ended,” Teddy remarked shortly afterward. “There was a lot of adjusting to do.” Teddy subsequently pursued a solo career and remained an Opry member until his death from congestive heart failure on November 24, 2003.
