A gift of Christmas cheer

(Photo submitted) Duane Allen, Joe Bosnall, William Lee Golden and Richard Sterban -- the Oak Ridge Boys -- bring the group's popular Christmas tour to the Clay County Regional Events Center Sunday, Dec. 20. Emmetsburg High School Choir will open the show at 7:30 p.m.

Something classic, something new, something borrowed, and lots for you.

That's what the Oak Ridge Boys will deliver when they roll into town on Sunday for the next to last date on their 2009 Christmas concert tour. The show will get under way at 7:30 p.m.

"It's a great show for kids, a great show for grandma and grandpa. It's great family entertainment at Christmas time. We love doing this Christmas music, we love doing this Christmas show. We're excited about bringing it to Spencer," said the group's bass singer Richard Sterban, the famous vocals behind "Um papa, um papa, mow, mow," known the world over.

Emmetsburg High School's choir will open the show after being selected from three area high school choral groups seeking the honor. Then it's all Oak Ridge Boys. And fans can expect to be entertained.

"We're going to come out for 45 minutes and do the hits," said Sterban, from the back of a tour bus outside of Evansville, Ind., Thursday. "Even though it's a Christmas show, we'll do Elvira."

The group will also perform cuts from their new album, "The Boys Are Back" -- including the title track, written by Shooter Jennings, which will serve as the show's opener. The set will also feature the song "GI Joe and Lilly" which has become a YouTube sensation for the group. After performing Oak Ridge Boys classic hits as well as the new favorites, the show will take an intermission while the Boys switch gears into holiday mode.

According to Sterban, the second half of the show will feature, "every aspect there is of Christmas."

"Santa Claus will make an appearance, we'll perform fun and spiritual Christmas songs. We even honor Mrs. Santa Claus, I think we're the only ones who do that. We'll sing the traditional Christmas favorites and then some newer songs -- both secular and inspirational.

A little history

The foundations of the Oak Ridge Boys date back to World War II when a group of musicians calling themselves the Georgia Clodhoppers would travel to Oak Ridge, Tenn., where they worked on the Manhattan Project -- helping to develop the atomic bomb.

"That group really needed to change its name," Sterban chuckled in his deep voice.

The group became known as the Oak Ridge Quartet and performed until the 1950s when it disbanded. It was reborn the Oak Ridge Boys in the latter years of that decade and has been going strong ever since.

William Lee Golden was the first of the current group to join, coming on board in 1965. Duane Allen followed a year later. Sterban came on board in 1972 and Joe Bosnall, a year later.

"It was just a matter of being at the right place at the right time," Sterban said.

The current foursome has been singing together for over 30 years. "We have experienced longevity in this business."

Sterban began his singing career as a six-year-old soprano in Sunday school in his native Camden, N.J. He was a tenor in the glee club in seventh grade, but when he returned in the fall for eighth grade, he was a bass.

Before joining the Oaks, he sang in various groups, most notably backing Elvis Presley as a member of The Stamps Quartet.

Because of his long-standing interest in weather, Sterban recently recorded public service announcements for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radio network, the "voice" of the National Weather Service. He is also the "voice" for the Classic Country channel on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Sterban and wife, Donna, have two daughters living at home, Lauren and Tori; along with three older sons, Rich, Doug and Chris; and six grandchildren.

Honoring the veterans

Joe Bosnall, a member of the Oak Ridge Boys who appeared at the Clay County Fair for Veterans Day activities in 2004, penned "GI Joe and Lillie," a tribute to his parents, both of whom are veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The song has become a phenomenon on the Internet. He performed the song at the ceremony honoring the vets.

"Joe wrote the song in 2001, and we recorded it in 2003 on a CD called 'Colors,'" Sterban said "It did okay. We did it on a TV show a couple of years ago, and a fan of ours, took the song off the television show and put it on YouTube. It did it okay, nothing phenomenal, until right before Veterans Day. Then some people saw it on YouTube. Then it was being linked to. We had veterans watching it, we had soldiers currently serving watching."

Veterans embraced the song as have many other viewers of YouTube.

According to Sterban, "I just checked yesterday, it's now at almost 1.8 million views."'

Bosnall and rest of the Boys played in the grandstand at the fair that same evening. It was the last time the Oak Ridge Boys were in Spencer.

Keeping it going

So how does a group like the Oak Ridge Boys survive four decades of evolution in the country music industry?

"We've been able to change with the times. We're the Oak Ridge Boys, we sing how we sing. We've stayed true to ourselves, but as the times have changed, we've had to adjust."

Nowhere is that more evident than in the group's latest album, "The Boys Are Back."

The project came about after the Boys were asked to record "Slow Train" with Shooter Jennings, the son of Waylon Jennings. After Shooter's personal call to Allen, asking the group to participate, they met David Cobb, who was producing Shooter's project, "The Wolf." After recording, Shooter was performing at a showcase, and asked the quartet to join him on stage for Slow Train. The audience was much younger and wilder than the typical Oak Ridge Boys demographic, but the group was met with enthusiasm, especially when they performed Elvira with Shooter's band before leaving the stage.

"They knew every word of Elvira. It was a pretty special moment. We thought then, we could cut and record some music that could reach a younger audience," Sterban said.

The Oak Ridge Boys and Cobb agreed to work together on "The Boys Are Back."

"He challenged us to be different. He took us down some roads we've never gone before," Sterban admitted.

The result was a collection of work the group never would have considered.

Among the songs on the album, John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom," Neil Young's "Beautiful Bluebird," Jamey Johnson's stone-country, "Mama's Table," Shooter Jennings' title tune especially for the Oaks, and a striking version of The White Stripes' song "Seven Nation Army."

"He (Cobb) wanted us to do 'Seven Nation Army.' We took the instrumental parts and did them with our voices," said Sterban.

"I have the lead on John Lee Hooker's 'Boom, Boom.' I never would have thought of doing that."

One song required a trip to the Smithsonian Institute to find the actual lyrics. It was during the recording of this album in 2008 that the Boys received the Academy of Country Music's top honor, its Pioneer Award.

"It was a great project that has energized and revitalized our group," Sterban said.

Life on the road

"This is our 20th annual Christmas tour. For the longest time, we started doing this tour the day after Thanksgiving. But the demand has been so great, we have to start early in November. Spencer is our next to last night," Sterban explained. "We get home on the 23rd to spend Christmas with our families. Have some time off through the New Year's.

Sterban said that over the course of the year, the band tries to limit touring to a week at a time at the most, allowing plenty of time for family and friends. He said that the exception to that is the Christmas tour. "Our families are very dedicated to this tour, too, and they understand."

All four band members call Hendersonville, Tenn., -- a suburb of Nashville -- home. The community, also the hometown of teen recording superstar Taylor Swift, serves as home to many familiar names to country music fans. "Marty Stuart is my neighbor, and before his untimely death, Johnny Cash used to live just down the road," said Sterban. "It's a great community and a great place to raise a family."