'Music that helps heal our spirit': After personal difficulties, Country Hall of Fame group to bring songs to State Theatre

EASTON, Pa. — In the past year and a half, Country Music Hall of Fame vocal group The Oak Ridge Boys has dealt with difficult tragedy.

In July 2024, its 50-year tenor voice, Joe Bonsall, died from complications of ALS after a two-year hiatus from the group. That same year, 60-year lead singer Duane Allen lost his wife, Norah.

And last May, after 55 years in the group, bass singer Richard Sterban stepped away to deal with pancreatic cancer.

Yet this year, The Oak Ridge Boys are doing what the group has done for an astonishing 83 years.

It soon expects to release "Buried Treasures," the group's 68th album of new material — a mix of new songs and classics such as "You Are So Beautiful," the 1970s hit by Joe Cocker, and the Simon & Garfunkel hit "Bridge Over Troubled Waters."

And the group is back out on tour, and will stop at 6 p.m. Sunday, March 15, at Easton's State Theatre.

Tickets, at $65-$85, remain available at the theatre website and are expected to be available at the door at 453 Northampton St.

"It’s like what we do, it’s where we find our energy," group baritone William Lee Golden said in a telephone interview.

"We need the healing the music brings us. And the older we get, it seems like the more we need it."

'It takes you to another place'

After the difficulties The Oak Ridge Boys faced, Golden said the group considered retiring — much as its contemporaries, the vocal group The Statler Brothers, did in 2002.

Bonsall's death was particularly difficult for the group, Golden said.

“God rest his soul — it was a tremendous loss for The Oak Ridge Boys," he said.

“They had talked about [retiring], yes — a couple or three guys. ... And that was before Duane lost his wife shortly after that.

“But I’ll tell you, I talked to Duane and I told him, ‘Man, we didn’t start this group — none of us started the group. And I don’t want to be the person who creates a situation to shut the group down."

The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet, and made regular Grand Ole Opry appearances before merging into a popular Southern gospel group in the 1950s.

The name officially was changed to The Oak Ridge Boys in the early 1960s, and it started to concentrate on country music in the mid-1970s.

Starting with 1977’s Top 3 Country hit “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” the group has had 37 Top 40 Country hits, with 17 of them going to No. 1.

It is perhaps best known for its platinum country hit “Elvira,” which crossed over to the Top 5 on the pop chart in 1981.

“I think there are new generations of people that we’ve inspired along the way, inspired by our music," Golden said. "I was a big fan of Oak Ridge Boys before I joined them in 1965.

"So I know how young people can be inspired by a group’s singing.

"Maybe we’re a little older, but we’re fortunate, man. At our age, me and Duane have been together, man, a lot of people don’t even get this old.

"But when we’re making music, we’re forgetting about it. That’s the great magic of music — you forget about your age when you’re out there singing, man. It takes you to another place.”

Amid woes, songs about mamas

The group's most recent album, 2024's "Mama's Boys," came amid the personal difficulties.

“That was the first album that Joe couldn’t be with us," Golden said. "He had plans to do it, and he had wanted to sing the song ‘Mama’s Teaching Angels How to Sing,’ the Dottie Rambo song, but he couldn't do it."

Golden said The Oak Ridge Boys met James, the new bass singer, while touring with a bluegrass group friend of theirs, Daily & Vincent.

“Joe called [James] a little over two years ago and told him, ‘Ben, the Oak Ridge Boys need you and I can’t go any further, and you need to go help them this weekend.’

“So he joined up with us, and we didn’t even have a chance to have a rehearsal with Ben. Joe said he could do it, and he could do all of our songs.

"So man, we went out, and sure enough, the kid is incredible. He’s a young kid — 27 when he joined us there. And Ben has that high, lonesome-sounding voice. He came out of a bluegrass background and gospel background."

A highlight of "Mama's Boys" was the song "Come On Home," a video of which won The Oak Ridge Boys a Telly Award for music video directing last year.

"We did the whole video in my home and around my home and outside — I have a big outdoor fireplace here," Golden said.

The song included The Statler Brothers' tenor Jimmy Fortune, whom he said James grew up listening to.

Making the album even more relevant, Golden said, was producer Dave Cobb, who in the past 15 years was nominated for 13 Grammy Awards and won nine.

"Big awards with Chris Stapleton, The Red Clay Strays and people like that — the young crowd that’s out there today," Golen said.

“All those songs on that album were about mothers, and our mamas. Dave Cobb had the idea to do an album about mamas and so we’d never done that, and I don’t know that anybody else had."

'I needed that'

The new album, "Buried Treasures," again taps Cobb as producer, and several of the new songs on it were written by Aaron Richer, also known as Aaron Raitiere.

Raitiere, who Golden said is a friend of Cobb's and who has written for Lainey Wilson and Ella Langley, also with David Lee Murphy, wrote the title track, on which Allen sings lead.

"It’s an up-tempo song, incredible to sing and it’s great harmonies," Golden said.

He said Sterban, despite his health, sang two or three songs on the new disc, but has not been cleared by his doctors to go back out on the road.

"But we’ve got this young bass singer who joined us helping us there," Golden said, referring to Dailey & Vincent bass Aaron McCune.

“He’s incredible; one of the best young bass singers I’ve ever heard. This young generation of people is exciting to be around.”

Golden said the disc also includes classic songs — James sings "You Are So Beautiful," and Golden said Cobb persuaded him to sing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" — which he called "one of my favorites."

“So those are buried treasures that we had never sang, but songs that we had loved and was the fabric of our lives — our musical lives," Golden said.

“Singers or songwriters, they love everybody else’s music. [But] music has a healing power, man — mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. So I need that.”

'Music that helps heal our spirit'

Golden also credited The Oak Ridge Boys' success to Allen, with whom he's now performed for more than 60 years.

“So we’ve seen a lot of things come and go in our lifetimes," Golden said. "But he’s still one of the great lead singers of all time.

"He’s played a major part in our music history. He helps find the songs and he works close with record producers. Majored in music in college and choral arrangements and vocal training.

"And again, he’s been a tremendous asset and backbone for The Oak Ridge Boys as far as his contributions, and he’s still singing great."

Golden in January turned 87. Asked whether he ever considers how long he will continue, he recalls the late country music legend Governor Jimmie Davis, who "when he was a young man wrote 'You Are My Sunshine.'"

“Well he was a friend of ours; we worked with him back in our early years as young singers," Golden said.

“He recorded through the years, he was a big country star — having a song like ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Summer Time,’ songs like that.

"He ran for governor and won twice in Louisiana, but he kept recording while he was governor and after he was governor. And he kept recording till he was 100 years old.

“So that’s people that inspired us, too."

Music, Golden said, “is so uplifting. it’s what brought us out of the deep depth of sorrow, of losing our close family and friends. It’s the music that helps heal our spirit.

"And I want to ride the horse as long as I’m able to ride. Then I want to pass the torch to someone who’s even better than I am.”