The Oak Ridge Boys

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The 2010 Line-up

Playing

Monday Jun 7 7:00 PM on Grand Ole Opry
Thursday Jun 10 7:00 PM on Grand Ole Opry
Thursday Jun 10 7:30 PM on LP Field

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1137 CMA Music Fest 2010 fans added this band.

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The Oak Ridge Boys

The Oak Ridge Boys is a country and gospel group that is based in the United States. The group was founded in 1945 as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular during the 1950s. Their name was changed to the Oak Ridge Boys in the early 1960s, and they remained a gospel-oriented group until the mid 1970s, when they changed their image and concentrated more on country and pop music. The band's current lineup consists of lead singer Duane Allen, baritone William Lee Golden, tenor Joe Bonsall, and bass Richard Sterban.

Over the next few years, the group collaborated on an album with polka instrumentalist Jimmy Sturr and then made an album for Platinum Records called Voices.

After spending many years dealing with problems such as labels that did not seem to want to promote them, studio breakdowns, and record companies going out of business, their fortunes changed when they signed with Spring Hill Records in 2000. In the first four years of teaming with Dove Award-winning producer Michael Sykes, they made a full length gospel album (From The Heart), another Christmas album (Inconvenient Christmas), a patriotic album (Colors), a bluegrass album (The Journey), and recorded gospel songs to be added to a special edition version of From The Heart that was available only from Feed The Children. Later, to recoup some of the costs of making the album for Feed the Children, the label took those new songs, two from The Journey, and freshly cut versions of some of their previous gospel hits to make up their 2005 Common Thread album. They then made another Christmas album and had plans to record Fresh Cuts, which would have contained some new songs and some newly recorded versions of some of their hits. These plans were stalled by MCA releasing some of their country hits on a new compilation.

In 2006 the group completed a new album, Front Row Seats, on Spring Hill Records. The album is a return to mainstream country music with modern arrangements and song selection.

In 2007 the group appeared on Shooter Jennings' album The Wolf.

In mid-2008, lead singer Duane Allen announced that the group would be releasing a new project in mid-2009 currently being produced by Dave Cobb, who produced Shooter Jennings' (son of the late Waylon Jennings) album, "The Wolf". The Boys Are Back was released on May 19, 2009, named for the title song written by Shooter Jennings. The album debuted at #16 on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart and #77 on the Billboard Top 200.