From Elvis to ‘Elvira’ with an Oak Ridge Boy Oak Ridge Boys 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13. Higley Center for the Performing Arts, 4132 E. Pecos Road, Gilbert. $39.50-$62.50. 480-279-7190, higleycenter.org.
Being inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015 was a “monumental” experience for Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys.
“It’s hard to describe just how special that is,” he recalls. “Johnny Cash is in there. Elvis is in there. George Jones. Dolly Parton. The list goes on and on. And for the Oak Ridge Boys to be part of that family? It’s just mind-boggling.”
He and the other Oak Ridge Boys – Duane Allen, Joe Bonsall and William Lee Golden – decided they needed to do something special to commemorate the occasion. So they reached out to one of the hottest producers in Nashville, best known for his work on Grammy-winning albums by Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell.
“We remembered working with Dave Cobb the first time, about 11 or 12 years ago,” Sterban says. “It was a project called ‘The Boys Are Back.’ He took us down some roads musically that we’d never traveled before. So we already knew he was a special guy.”
Although he’s much more in demand these days, Cobb said he’d love to do another album with the Oak Ridge Boys.
But this time, Sterban says, they had to wait their turn.
Goin’ to church
When they finally met at a restaurant on Music Row in Nashville, the producer laid out his agenda for the sessions.
“He said, ‘I want you to think of Elvis. I want you to maybe think of Jerry Lee Lewis, that old rockabilly sound, maybe even some old blues guys like Ray Charles. What was it about those guys that made them so special? It’s the very same thing that makes you guys so special. The very first singing they ever did was in church.”
Cobb suggested an album that captured that feeling of going to church or “an old-time revival meeting,” Sterban says.
The resulting album, 2018’s “17th Avenue Revival,” offsets gospel hymns and spirituals with more contemporary songs, including “Pray to Jesus,” whose chorus is “We pray to Jesus and we play the Lotto.”
“The word revival is very critical here,” he says. “It talks about a revival of the soul and of the spirit. This music is touching a lot of people’s lives, touching people’s hearts and changing people for the better.”
But it also has to do with the revival of RCA Studio A, which Sterban says is “probably the most historic recording studio” in Nashville.
The end result, Sterban says, “has made us relevant in today’s marketplace. Our album was actually back on the country charts.”
The album did so well, in fact, that their label has already said they want another album and Cobb has agreed to produce it.
Beginnings
The Oak Ridge Boys were founded as a Southern gospel quartet in the 1940s. None of the singers on “17th Avenue Revival” were involved at that point. Golden joined in 1965, a year before Allen. Sterban and Bonsall signed on in the early ‘70s.
Sterban was singing bass for another Southern gentleman with gospel roots when he was asked to join the Oak Ridge Boys.
His name was Elvis Presley.
“For about two years prior to joining the Oak Ridge Boys,” Sterban says, “I sang in a group called J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet. And that in itself was a great experience. J.D. Sumner is in ‘The Guinness Book of World Records’ as the world’s lowest bass singer.”
Sumner provided a “tremendous influence” on Sterban, who says, “He was like a second father to me.”
He was working with the Stamps Quartet when Presley called and asked if they would be his backup singers.
The Stamps Quartet were Presley’s backup group for nearly two years.
Presley loved gospel music, especially black gospel music.
“Elvis would have loved this latest project by the Oak Ridge Boys,” Sterban says. “It’s just the kind of music that he loved. So for me to do this project with Dave Cobb is kind of coming full circle. There’s a lot of similarities. There really are.”
It was while singing with Presley that Sterban got a call from Golden, who asked if he’d be interested in singing bass for them.
“So here I was on top of the world, apparently, singing with Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll,” Sterban says. “But I had to make a decision. I felt like the Oak Ridge Boys had a great deal of potential and I really wanted to be a part of that. So I made a decision to leave Elvis and I joined the Oak Ridge Boys.”
‘Oom-papa mow-mow’
It was nearly a decade after Sterban joined the Oak Ridge Boys that they crossed over to the pop charts with a single that remains their biggest hit, “Elvira.”
Sterban still has vivid memories of the first time he heard Dallas Frazier’s version of the song that changed the Oak Ridge Boys’ trajectory forever.
A few days later, they were in the studio with Chancey, recording “Elvira.”
“And I remember it went down so easy,” Sterban says. “We did it in two or three takes. And it felt like it was a hit. Everybody was smiling and having a good time. The studio musicians, I’ll never forget the look on their faces. They could tell it was a hit song. So we felt like we had something special.”
It Chancey’s idea to have Sterban sing the hook that would define the record: “Giddy up oom-papa oom-papa mow-mow.”
It wasn’t a bass singer on Frazier’s version, but Sterban adapted it to his own comfort zone.
“And it’s become one of the most famous basslines in the music business,” he says, with a laugh. “So I guess it turned out OK.”
They knew it was a hit
They could tell right away that the song was a hit, he recalls. But they no idea just how big a hit it was until they played it live in Spokane, Wash.
“When we did ‘Elvira’ in the middle of that show, right there in Spokane, Washington, the place just came unglued.”
They had to do it three or four times in a row. He’s happy to sing “Elvira” every night on tour, where it remains the highlight of a very entertaining set.
“We’ve been doing this obviously for a long time,” Sterban says. “Anywhere we go, we walk on stage and people treat us like they’re happy to see us. They respond to whatever we do in an enthusiastic way . ... We’re having fun. Even after all these years, we still look forward, every night that we’re on the road, to getting on stage, taking our music live to our fans.”