William Lee Golden faced not one but two devastating losses this year. Golden lost his son, 65-year-old Rusty Golden on July 1, followed by fellow longtime Oak Ridge Boys member, Joe Bonsall, on July 9.
Through it all, Golden kept on singing.
“It was a devastating sadness in our family,” Golden tells CCM Magazine. “There’s a depth of sadness that’s indescribable. But, after a few days of sitting alone and reflecting, and dealing with the sorrow and the sadness, when we went back out to sing, I found that there was a healing power in the music, and as we’re singing these songs and performing them, some of them make you reflect on the times we were together with our families.
“So, we’re going through a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual healing ourselves, because it affects all sides of you,” he adds. “Your whole body is being affected by sadness.”
In addition to the other members of The Oak Ridge Boys also grieving the loss of Bonsall, Duane Allen is also mourning the loss of his wife, Norah Lee, who passed away on March 31.
“Music has that God-given power to help lift us up and heal us,” Golden explains. “It’s something that we find each night. We feel better after a show than we did before the show, and it’s still that way. Duane is feeling the same way too that I’m feeling. But it is a sadness, and it’s something that we can’t help. But we have to love them and remember them. You can’t just sit still. There’s so long we can grieve, but then it’s time to stand up and move forward. And again, it was music that helped us, and the healing process to move forward.”
The Oak Ridge Boys are definitely moving forward, especially with the addition of Ben James, whom Bonsall personally invited to take his place in the iconic group, after his battle with ALS made it too difficult for him to continue to tour. Although The Oak Ridge Boys initially planned that their current American Made: Farewell Tour, launched in 2023, would be their final tour, due to Bonsall’s deteriorating health, now Golden says The Oak Ridge Boys will continue for years to come.
“The Oak Ridge Boys are not retiring,” Golden maintains. “It was heart-wrenching for us to say farewell to Joe Bonsall. He was 50 years singing tenor. It’s been close to a year ago when he was really going down faster. But this young man came along. We knew him because he had sang on stage with us in Wheeling, West Virginia one night.”
Golden even hints that The Oak Ridge Boys could continue after he, Allen and Richard Sterban are unable to tour.
“We will go until we can’t, and I think we all came here enjoying The Oak Ridge Boys,” Golden says. “There was a great singer standing in the spot that we stood on, and the torch was passed to each one of us. And I think that it’s our obligation to actually pass the torch to a new generation when it’s time. We can go as far as we can and with the success and the acceptance of the audience, like Ben James is being accepted out there. He’s not Joe Bonsall. No one is Joe Bonsall but Joe Bonsall. But he’s Ben James.”
The Oak Ridge Boys’ new album, Mama’s Boys, will be out on October 25. Pre-order the record, and find all of The Oak Ridge Boys’ music and upcoming shows at OakRidgeBoys.com.