For a group that traces its roots back 60 years, the Oak Ridge Boys are looking mighty energetic.
The country legends still grind it out on tour, performing about 160 gigs a year.
They’ve got a new CD coming out this spring – No.36.
And tonight at the Paramount Theatre they open a five-week tour before heading Saturday for a show at the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs.
Joe Bonsall, the group’s tenor, just laughed when asked for the name of the tour.
“We don’t name them, because the Oak Ridge Boys are always on the road,” Bonsall said by telephone from the parking lot of a Sears store in Henderson, Tenn., where he was waiting to get new tires put on his pickup truck.
The group’s reputation stretches way back to 1945 and an odd confluence of gospel music and the atomic bomb.
Really.
Back then they performed under the name the Oak Ridge Quartet. They “started out, as the story goes, as the Georgia Clodhoppers,” Bonsall said. “And they were a bluegrass gospel group.”
Based in Knoxville, Tenn., the group was asked toward the end of World War II to entertain regularly at one of the three Manhattan Project sites, in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where research on the first on the first atomic bomb was conducted.
“They had thousands of people sequestered there,” Bonsall said. “But they would bring these guys in on a Saturday night to entertain. And they were the only ones allowed in and out. And they became known then as the Oak Ridge Quartet or Our Oak Ridge Quartet.”
After break ups, as many as 40 members and plenty of years later, the group reformed as the Oak Ridge Boys in 1961. Lead singer Duane Allen joined the Boys in 1966, Bonsall in ’73 and bass Richard Sterban in ’72. Baritone William Lee Golden signed on in 1965, left in 1987 and re-upped in 1995. In 1977, they had their big hit with the classic “Y’All Come Back Saloon.”
Before that, they toured as a gospel group with such secular acts as Johnny Cash, whom they joined on the road in the 1970s.
“He was a big part of our career,” Bonsall said. “Johnny Cash took us out on the road and paid us more than we were worth for years when we just needed some help. Johnny to me is one of the major reasons why and how we survived the middle ’70s. I mean we were starving to death, and Johnny Cash was always there to inspire us.”
Bonsall called the Oscar-nominated film “Walk the Line” a Hollywood version of the story of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash. But he added that he loved it because he loved Cash so much.
“He was a lot of things, maybe a paradox in some ways,” Bonsall said. “You know he was as crazy as can be. And yet he possessed this down-to-earth gospel love for the Lord, and at the same time, the next day he just got crazy again.”
The Boys opened Cash’s shows with about 15 minutes of gospel music. Then they went behind the curtain and backed up Cash on some songs with oohs and aahs. Finally, they joined Cash and the Carter Family on stage for the final song.
“In fact, I remember the song,” Bonsall said. “It was called ‘The Fourth Man.’ It was about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And nobody could say the words Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego better than Johnny Cash. It was lots of fun in those days.”
Bonsall swears the Boys all still have a lot of fun on the road, performing on stages in theaters and at state fairs around the country.
He said a major part of the enjoyment they get from performing comes the fact that they continue to perform at a high level.
“We don’t have anything to prove anymore,” Bonsall said. “We do what we want to do, go out there and sing and have a great time.”
Another ingredient is the variety of music the Boys deliver.
“You come to see us; you hear a bunch of hits that you wanted to hear,” Bonsall said. “You hear a little bluegrass. We wave the flag a little and sing a little gospel. I mean, it’s all there. We’re going to pop you but not hurt you.”
While some other top vocal groups have left the game, Bonsall does not see the Boys following suit anytime soon.
“I tell you what, man, there is an incredible mentality in this group,” he said. “I look around and see that the Statlers have retired. Alabama has said farewell. And the Oak Ridge Boys have new buses. What does that tell you?”
“I just think we don’t even know how to slow down. … We’re just a hard working group out there.”
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
Oak Ridge Boys
The country group will make two appearances along the Front Range this weekend: DENVER|Paramount Theatre, 1631 Glenarm Place; 7:30 tonight |$29.50-$55; through Ticketmaster, 303-830-8497 or ticketmaster.com. COLORADO SPRINGS|Pikes Peak Center, 190 S. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs; 8 p.m. Saturday|$35-$42.50; through TicketWest, 866-464-2626 or ticketwest.com.
