When The Oak Ridge Boys‘ Joe Bonsall announced he was retiring from touring at the start of 2024, he said it was because he was “battling a slow onset (over four years now) of a neuromuscular disorder,” which Bonsall shared when explaining his decision to come off of the road.
Bonsall passed away on July 9 from complications of the illness, which is when it was revealed that he had ALS.
“Joe just didn’t want any kind of pity party or anything like that happening,” Allen tells American Songwriter. “A few of us knew. He just wanted to address it as a muscle degenerative disease, which is what ALS is. And so that’s the way we addressed it.”
Allen also reveals he spent time with Bonsall in his final days, but was not with him when he passed away.
“I went home to get some rest, and he breathed his last breath about 3:00 AM,” Allen recalls. “He had a great life, and he’s greatly missed. The guy who took his place looked at Joe as a hero, and he knew everything that Joe had ever sung.”
Bonsall was replaced by Ben James, who began touring with The Oak Ridge Boys at the start of 2024, and also appears on their upcoming album, Mama’s Boys, out on October 25. It was Bonsall who personally called James and offered him the position of a lifetime, after hearing James sing on their iconic song, “Elvira,” during a live show.
“He said, ‘Ben, I’m done. Get on your singing britches,’” Allen recalls him saying. “And Joe is the one that called Ben. So, Ben has been with us ever since. He’s great to sing with.”
James is an undeniable talent, but what endears him most to The Oak Ridge Boys is the respect he has for Bonsall.
“Ben’s not trying to be Joe,” Richard Sterban says. “We’re not asking him to be Joe. Ben is being himself, and it’s worked out very, very well.”
Bonsall struggled with his health before he was officially diagnosed with ALS, visiting both the Mayo Clinic in Wisconsin and Nashville’s own Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in an attempt to get answers.
“He was under [the care of doctors] for two years, and for quite some time, they couldn’t identify it,” Allen says. “When they finally did, then we started trying to figure out how do we deal with this.”
It was Bonsall’s struggle with his health that prompted The Oak Ridge Boys to launch their American Made: Farewell Tour in 2023, agreeing to cut down their tour schedule to just 50 dates a year, instead of their typical 150, in an attempt to accommodate Bonsall and his deteriorating mobility.
At the time, no one considered that The Oak Ridge Boys would continue without Bonsall.
“We told him, ‘Look, if you go down, we’re going down. We’ll just retire the group,” Allen remembers. “We talked, and we talked.”
James went on the road with The Oak Ridge Boys for their Christmas tour, which was also Bonsall’s final performance with the band he had been part of for more than 50 years.
“Joe told us as we walked him over to his wheelchair on the edge of the stage, he told us, ‘I’m done,’” Allen says. “He said, ‘I got to go home and deal with my illness.’”
The Oak Ridge Boys hoped that Bonsall would be able to transition out, with James slowly taking over, but that unfortunately was not able to happen, due to Bonsall’s declining health. William Lee Golden, Allen and Sterban also wanted Bonsall to be able to sing on at least some of Mama’s Boys, but sadly, it was a wish that could not be fulfilled.
“He called me and said, ‘Ace, I just don’t have have it. My voice is husky, and I don’t have the diaphragm support that I need to sing it. So you guys do the album,’” Allen says. “We were going to show a transition from him to Ben, but he just didn’t feel like he could do his part.”
With Bonsall’s passing, The Oak Ridge Boys have openly admitted they are not as interested in retiring as they once were, and hint they may not continue well into the future.
“I have to tell you, I’m not ready to retire, and I don’t think any of the Oak Ridge boys are,” Sterban admits. “While we are on our farewell tour, we do not know when the farewell tour will end. We want to go to as many places as we can possibly go to and thank the people for allowing us to have such a long and such a great career. And that’s going to take us some time.”
See a track list for Mama’s Boys below. Pre-order the record, and find all of The Oak Ridge Boys’ music and upcoming shows at OakRidgeBoys.com.
Mama’s Boys’ Track Listing:
01. That’s The Way Mama Made It
02. Mama’s Boys
03. Mama’s Teaching Angels How To Sing
04. Ever With Me
05. Her Voice
06. Mama Sang For Me
07. Come On Home
08. I Thought About You, Lord (Feat. Willie Nelson)
09. Sweetest Gift
10. Divine Witness