Boys will be Boys

Melissa Schorr

Friday, Jan. 30, 1998 | 10:02 a.m.

All four Oak Ridge Boys sink into chairs in the dressing room of the Hilton Theater, still wobbly-kneed that they have just sung a gospel number with "legendary" blues singer Lou Rawls.

"In rehearsals today, I was so nervous I could hardly sing," admits bass singer Richard Sterban in his low-register voice.

"There was a few times out there, we forgot to sing," confesses lead singer Duane Allen.

It is only going to get worse:

What will they do later in the week, when they will appear with some of the biggest names in country, such as Merle Haggard ("The Hag," as they call him affectionately)?

Or when they get onstage with Las Vegas legends such as Englebert Humperdinck, ("The Hump," as he is affectionately called here)?

But right now, winding down after a four-hour taping, the first of 15 for their new weekly TV show, "The Oak Ridge Boys from Las Vegas" (debuting April 7 on TNN) the 50-something-year-old 'boys' are taking a moment to reflect on the past, rather than worry about the week ahead of them.

This, after all, was the stage where they first played Las Vegas, opening for Johnny Cash 25 years ago in 1973, and this is the town they have played consistently since then, traveling the circuit from the Hilton to the Landmark, Frontier, MGM, Caesars, Bally's and the Orleans -- and now back to the Hilton in what they see as divine symmetry.

"This is kind of like cycles in the circle -- sometimes, it makes a different loop around and you come back here in a different way," says William Lee Golden, breaking his trademark reticence for the first time in the half-hour interview. Known as "the bearded one" of the band for his untrimmed two-foot -- and growing -- mountain man whiskers, Golden reunited with the band two years ago after an eight-year break.

"William being back with the band gave us our group back," Allen says. "And we're picking up where we left off. We're not going back to redoing things just to redo it, we're looking for new material. I look forward to ... making hit records again."

Past and future

And now that the four contemporary Oak Ridge Boys are together again, it is time to try a trick worthy of the magicians booked for the show -- simultaneously looking forward and behind them: After the taping, the foursome (Joe Bonsall, Allen, Sterban and Golden) plans to return to the studio to mark their 25th anniversary together with a boxed set re-recording of their "25 Greatest Hits."

Twenty five years, a fantasy longevity for most bands, is just a footnote in Oak Ridge Boys history. The group was formed back in the '40s as a gospel quartet, taking their name from Oak Ridge, Tenn., where researchers were working to develop the bomb.

Since then, about 30 different members rotated in and out of the band's four slots, until the early '70s, when the current members landed their spots.

"I pick up magazines and see young guys having hit records breaking up, and I see us guys who've been around a long time, constantly reinventing what we're doing," Bonsall says.

That includes some other projects in the works: A new Christmas album, an upcoming single with Pam Tillis, and accompanying Jimmy Sturr on a polka album.

But perhaps nearest and dearest to their hearts is the plan to record, for the first time in all these years, a gospel album, redoing some classic Oak Ridge Boys gospel songs made by the singers who came before them.

"We're going back to gospel to do it right," Allen explains. "Everything (since then) has been re-releases, and most of it is not all of us. We would like them have us hear how we sound today, singing music that we grew up on."

In fact, the group might have stayed as it was -- the top gospel act of the early '70s -- if it weren't for manager and 'godfather' Jim Halsey, who suggested they take the band in another direction: pop/country.

The advice was sound. Soon after, they scored with hits like "Y'all Come Back Saloon" and, of course, the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, the catchy "Elvira" -- named after a little-known street in Nashville.

TV beckons

For years, the Oak Ridge Boys toyed with the idea of a TV show, but the timing was never right.

"We did not want to put together a variety show for the sake of it," Allen says. "It's always been possible, but something along the way didn't make sense. Then, we realized they were putting a lot into this show, their best people."

That includes Halsey, who returned from retirement to bring the band back into the limelight, and his son, Sherman Halsey, producer of country videos for stars such as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, who agreed to produce the show. This is the first prime-time variety series filmed in Las Vegas.

"There are no variety shows out there (anymore), and there's a lot of talent that has nowhere to go," says talent booker Carol Propp, who attended eight local shows to select her pick of the litter in local talent, such as the gymnastic act Human Design from "Spellbound '97," the "twins" from Luxor's "Imagine," magician Rick Thomas and performance artist Jean Francois Detaille from "MADhattan," to appear in the series. "Vegas is filled with wonderful variety acts. There's no place better than here."

Propp also had no problem convincing non-country performers such as Rawls and Neil Sedaka to grace the stage.

"The whole point of appearing on a country show is to bring a whole new audience to your viewing public -- that's the smartest thing any artist can do," she says. "TNN has 80 million viewers, and no artist can afford not to take a shot on a show that has viewership like that."

Showgirls and cowboys

Judging from the live taping, which will be sliced into a one-hour show, "The Oak Ridge Boys from Las Vegas" will be a classic love story of opposites attracting: Showgirl meets cowboy.

There are standard Vegas lounge acts, ventriloquist Todd Oliver's cruel-but-amusing talking dog bit, the "MADhattan" dancers tap-dancing around the stage (sans their great Public Library backdrops, which couldn't fit into the theater), impersonator Rich Little's dead-on schtick, aping everyone from Ted Koppel to Walter Matthau, and Lou Rawls' silky rendition of his 1976 hit, "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine."

Then there is the chicken-fried acts such as the Clark Family Experience, a six-piece, all-string band of brothers aged 14-23 (out of 11 siblings), each one cuter and more talented than the next -- in other words, the Hanson Brothers gone country.

John Schneider took a couple of takes ("I got cute and forgot to sing again," he apologized,) but finally nailed a rendition of the ballad "A Woman's Touch" and "What Took You So Long," from his latest album, his first since 1987, called "Worth The Wait." Schneider, of course, is an old buddy of the Oak Ridge Boys, who made guest appearances on his former show, "The Dukes of Hazzard," where they get stopped for speeding through town (the show is in reruns on TNN).

And naturally, Vegas meets Nashville in the finale, where rainbow-bedecked showgirls parade around the Oak Ridge Boys, wearing their "extreme" orange, red and turquoise suits.

The Oak Ridge Boys are optimistic that this trip to Las Vegas will be the start of yet another cycle in their lives.

"We look at this as an opportunity," Bonsall says. "A lot of times, somebody else gets that opportunity, and right now, we're getting it."

"At our last meeting," Allen says, "Mr. Hughes (TNN's VP of Programming Brian Hughes) said, 'Boys, get ready for 10 years.' "

"And when we were talking about what songs to sing," Bonsall adds, "he said, 'you better save some -- save some songs for next year.' "

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