SALAMANCA — Enjoy an evening of classic gospel, country and patriotic music this Saturday at 7 p.m. when The Oak Ridge Boys take the stage at the Seneca Allegany Event Center.
The Oaks have one of the most distinctive and recognizable sounds in the music industry with a string of hits including the pop chart-topper “Elvira” as well as “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight,” “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” “American Made” and many others.
Current members Joe Bonsall, Duane Allen, William Lee Golden and Richard Sterban are celebrating five decades together. Bonsall, songwriter, tenor vocalist and The Oak Ridge Boys’ main spokesman, said they have a pretty amazing history.
“We learned the four-part harmony that people enjoyed back in the Gospel days,” Bonsall told the Press in a recent interview. “Our success is also a matter of recording great songs. We’ve been able to put that chemistry together all of these decades and it has paid off for us.”
The quartet’s history goes back to World War II when it started out as Wally Fowler and the Georgia Clodhoppers, a bluegrass group out of Knoxville, Tenn. Formed in 1943, the original members included Fowler, Lon “Deacon” Freeman, Curly Kinsey and Johnny New.
Bonsall said the original group performed for Manhattan Project workers in Oak Ridge, Tenn., so often that they ultimately changed their name to the Oak Ridge Quartet in 1947. He said the group permanently changed its name to The Oak Ridge Boys in 1966.
“Our William Lee Golden (the guy with the long white hair and beard) joined the group in 1965, Duane Allen in ’66, Richard Sterban in ’72 and myself in ’73,” Bonsall said. “We stand on the shoulders of the original group that began recording in 1947. With all this history, we’ve done a lot of great things together and we just don’t want to see it end. We just keep on singing and I guess we’ll do it until we drop.”
THE MEMBERS hail from different parts of the country with Allen coming from Taylortown, Texas; Sterban from Camden, N.J.; Golden from Brewton, Ala., and Bonsall is originally from Philadelphia.
“We all live in Hendersonville, Tennessee, near Nashville these days,” he said. “It would take a team of wild horses to drag me out of middle Tennessee.”
The group’s magical four-part harmonies and, sometimes humorous lyrics like “oom papa mow mow,” makes listening fun and sets the quartet apart from many other groups.
“The music is important, finding good songs is important and presenting them correctly is important,” he said. We’ve tried to do that on our records over the years. That’s probably why we have sold 41 million albums.”
Bonsall attributes the group’s longevity to its members, who he said are a special kind of guys. He said they are forward thinking and always trying to make the show better than it has been.
But the group is not slowing down yet. Bonsall said they have a full tour schedule with a busy summer and an incredibly busy fall ahead of them.
“We’re very fortunate that we’ve been able to maintain for this many years and we’re still maintaining it today, even at our age,” he said. “We are not the young guys on the block anymore, but we are still out there singing good and feeling good. As long as that’s the case, we’ll keep at it.”
DOING A good show for the people who come out to hear them sing is their number one priority, Bosnall said, and their history is all part of it because they bring that history to the stage with them. The guys try to do the best they can every night, he said, and do it even better the next night if possible.
“I think that’s why the longevity has happened for us, because people still come to hear us sing,” he said. “They know they are going to see a good, clean, fast-paced show with a lot of hits and a lot of fun, along with a little Gospel and ‘wave the flag’ songs.”
The Oak Ridge Boys have scored 12 gold, three platinum and one double-platinum album, plus one double-platinum single and more than a dozen national No. 1 singles and over 30 Top 10 hits.
The four-part harmonies and upbeat songs of The Oak Ridge Boys have garnered a host of industry and fan accolades including Grammy, Dove, ACM and CMA awards. In 2008, they were awarded the coveted Academy of Country Music Pioneer Award.
Members of the Gospel Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry, the group was honored with induction into the esteemed and elite Country Music Hall of Fame in October 2015.
For more information, visit oakridgeboys.com and senecaalleganycasino.com. Tickets can be purchased at ticketmaster.com.
