The Oak Ridge Boys faced an unfathomable loss earlier this year, when Joe Bonsall passed away, after a lengthy battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neuromuscular disorder commonly known as ALS. The disease had been affecting Bonsall’s mobility for a few years, with Bonsall staying on the road as long as he could, even as the disease progressed.
After The Oak Ridge Boys’ final Christmas show last year, Bonsall stepped away from the road, leaving William Lee Golden, Richard Sterban and Duane Allen to continue without him.
“It was a heart-wrenching thing to watch night after night,” Golden tells Everything Nash. “But you also treasured every moment, because you knew they were fleeting moments.”
Bonsall originally wanted to make the final dates on their American Made: Farewell Tour, but realized at the end of 2023 that for him, his touring days were over.
“It was really hard to go through that progression, because we knew what was happening, but he didn’t want anybody to cry for him,” Allen reveals. “He didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for him. He just wanted to do the best he could, and he wanted to go out singing, and he did. Early in the year, he said, ‘I’m going to do my very best to make every Christmas show,’ and he never missed a show. He never missed a note. His voice was strong to the very last note of the last song we sang.”
It was Bonsall who decided it was time for him to stop touring, and also Bonsall who personally called his replacement, Ben James.
“As we carried him off the stage and put him into his wheelchair, he said, ‘I’m done. I’ll call tomorrow,’ and he called Ben James,” Allen remembers. “He called Ben and said, ‘I’m done. Get on your singing britches,’ and that’s how the replacement happened. Joe Bonsall called and hired Ben James as his replacement.”
James had for years said Bonsall was his role model, so for him to take the place of Bonsall was as seamless as could be, since he already knew all of Bonsall’s notes. Still, after being with The Oak Ridge Boys for 50 years, the loss of Bonsall has been incredibly difficult for the remaining three members.
“We’re doing just fine,” Allen maintains. “We had a very, very challenged year, all of us, all four of us. And it’s probably been the most difficult year in personal ways that we’ve been through, ever. But our friends and our fans have stepped up, and God has filled in all the blanks. And Ben James, his hero was Joe Bonsall, he knows everything that Joe has ever recorded. We haven’t even had a rehearsal with Ben. We just call a song, and he knows it.”
“We love having Ben with us,” he adds. “He’s been a godsend for us, and we are soldiering on. We have 21 shows to do before Christmas, and we’re booking all of next year.”
James might be doing an excellent job filling Bonsall’s place on stage and in their latest Mama’s Boys album, but no one will ever fully be able to fill the spot left vacant when Bonsall passed away.
“We’re moving forward,” Golden insists. “We’ve all been part of a helpless situation. It was helpless for Joe, and it’s been helpless for The Oak Ridge Boys. In everything in life, there is a time to be thankful and stand up and move forward, and that’s what The Oak Ridge Boys are doing. We’re dealing with the hand that we’ve been played. That’s how I look at it. We’re dealing with what the situation we were helpless in throughout Joe’s struggles, but everyone stood by him.”
Find Mama’s Boys and all of The Oak Ridge Boys’ music and upcoming shows at OakRidgeBoys.com.