September 12, 2025 • 27 mins
When Bob first started in radio in 1977, one of his first airshift was playing Gospel Music on Sunday mornings. That's where Bob first heard the Oak Ridge Boys. Later the Boys dove into Country Music and they have been there making history. It's taken nearly 50 years, but Bob finally got to visit with Oak Ridge Boy member Duane Allen. Here's the conversation!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the line with us right now, the legendary Dwayne
Allen of the Oakridge Boys First Fall Mystery. Allen, thanks
for taking the time to talk to me today. I
want to tell you I've been in radio. I first
got in radio in nineteen seventy seven in Sweetwater, Texas,
and one of my jobs was to play the Sunday
morning gospel, so I can tell you I'm sitting there,
(00:21):
I'm playing the Oakridge Boys. I get to know the
Oakridge Boys as a gospel group, and then a few
months later we get a country I I'm in at
the radio station called y'all come Back Saloon, start spinning that.
You know. One of my favorite songs that I would
play all the time on there was I'll Be True
to You, which that was to be honest with You.
That was my high school sweethearts. That was our song
(00:43):
back then which you sing that. And then another song
I would spend off that album all the time on
the air at KXOX was a song called You're the One,
and I fell in love with another side of the
Oakridge Boys, and I have been a big fans since
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's kind of interesting that you say that because we
were working with the Jim Halsey Company and he was
putting us on with different acts to intro introduce us
to the country music audience. And this was just as
our album was coming out or getting ready to come out.
(01:23):
We were co headlining with Mel Tillis at the Sparks
Nugget at Sparks, Nevada, and I had a lot of
time to talk with mel Tillis. Mail was a great
song man and I loved Mail. He was really smart,
and I just I gleaned all I could from people
(01:46):
like Mel Tillis and Timmy Rogers and Charlie Daniels, and
these were just good friends of mine and I would
ask him a thousand questions. But one thing that Mel
Tillis taught me on releasing they All come Back Saloon album.
He said, when you're releasing that album, this will be
(02:09):
your first single. Pick a song that goes up the
charts fast, and you probably need an uptempo song, and
don't expect it to just sell a million copies or
set the world on fire. But what you want to
do is get everybody's attention and it'll move up the
(02:30):
charts fast, and it may get to number one. It
may not, but you just need to get the people's attention.
It won't really stay there a long time. But what
you need to do then is find another song on
the album and follow it with a song that is
kind of similar in nature, an uptempos on a happy song,
(02:54):
and keep bringing it. So the first single was a
all come back saloon and we got to about his attention.
It got up to number two nationally, but couldn't go
further because there was a song and number one position
called Heaven Is Just a sin away of the singles,
and we couldn't get into number one there nationally. We
(03:18):
did locally in most every market, but we just we
hadn't learned how to time it perfectly yet. So we
followed with You're the One in the Million and it
got into the top five as well. But then mal
Tilly said, what you want to do for your third
single is you want to go for the heart and
(03:38):
soul of the woman because the women buy more albums
than anybody, and you want to really have a good
love song that goes right to her heart. So release
I'll Be True to You for your third single. That
song was a screaming number one. It was selling so
(04:02):
much that ABC DOT later became MCA Records, but at
this time it was ABC DOT. They were yelling at
us to give them more albums to sell. We need
another product, going to the studio and cut us another album.
(04:22):
So we did, and I'll Be True to You we
was still selling. It was still hot on the market.
By the time we got a new album ready for
them to sell, I'll Be True to You was still hot.
So they put it on the second album too, I'll
be So it's on two albums and instead of having
(04:44):
three singles off of the second album, we just had
two because they carried over I'll Be True to You
to the second album too.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I never knew that through, but I got to tell you,
everybody in Sweetwater, Texas heard that song dozens of times
when I was on the air Darnet three hour airshift.
I can tell you it's been quite a ride.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Adobody wanted to hear that song. That there's somebody that
that song applied to, right, And I think I think
that's uh, that's the secret of great songwriting. It doesn't
have to be the same story, but you just know
somebody that it does apply with.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's real life. It's real life. And that's one thing
I love about country music. Real life. A lot of
people may not know this, but you and I know this.
With every year I'm a member of the Texas Radio
Hall of Fame, that I know that we have. We
try to get you in every year you spent some
time in radio?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
How many years in radio?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Last two and a half years of college. I had
my own radio show at KPOT in Paris, Texas, and
I sold my own advertisement. I wrote my own script
in my own spots, and I collected the money. And
Jeff Methin, who was the manager of KPLT in Paris,
(06:05):
he let me look at the rate card and double
what was on the rate card and I could keep
the part that I doubled and help me with my
college expenses. That's what I got paid.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I paid them the rate and then I got
to keep a charge twice of what it would cost
to buy a spot on another program, and I got
to keep the rest. And that helped me pay my
expenses for college. And I had an hour a day,
six days a week, and forty five minutes on Sunday
(06:45):
and I would go I would go back to Paris
every Saturday morning, and I would go around to all
my sponsors and see if they wanted to change anything
on their spots for the coming week and collect money.
And then would I go around to see all of
them before noon. Usually I would get around to all
(07:09):
of them. Then I would head to the radio station,
into the production room, and I would stay there until
sometime after midnight or into the wee hours of the morning,
finishing six hours and forty five minutes of radio time
and record all of the shows that would be played
next the following week.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's unbelievable and I hope that we get to celebrate
in your future. You become a member of the Texas
Radio Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh, I know that there have been a few people
that have nominated me, and I've never really become a
Hall of Fame, member of the radio Hall of Fame,
but I've been honored so much by the Texas Country
Music Hall of Fame and the Texas Got Music Hall
(08:01):
of Fame. They're both in Carthage, Texas. And my home
state has honored me so many times, and I'm always
a proud Texan. And my years at radio were some
of the most productive years of my entire growing up experience.
I learned a lot there and I cherish those days.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I'm going to nominate you for next year. Can
I do that?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh? Well, thank you very much. I think how about
making it someday?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You will? You will, you will. We were talking before
I started the interview. Even though the tour is called
the American Made Farewell Tour, Oh rich, boys aren't going
away anytime soon, thank goodness. You guys are getting ready
to go back in the studio November work on another album. Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, you know we decided we back in twenty twenty three.
In the summer, Joe came to all of the rest
of us and he said, boys, you know that I've
got this disease and it's not getting better. But I'm
going to do my best to do all of the
(09:08):
Christmas shows. And so I said, well, Joe, there are
people who are wanting to book us for next year.
How do you feel about working next year? He said, well,
if I can work all the Christmas shows, if I
feel like it, I'd love to work next year, which
would be twenty four. And I said, well, how does
(09:31):
fifty dates sound to you? And he said that sounds great.
We had this young man that we had already talked to.
Joe was very aware of him. He had been a
friend of ours, a young man that Joe was his hero.
In fact, we still have yet to rehearse with him.
(09:51):
He knows everything Joe has ever recorded. And so we
took him out on the road with us and let
him play guitar in the band, and we hooked up
a sound set with our stage monitor guy where he
could sing with the other three of us in his ears.
He could hear what he sounded like with us in
(10:14):
his ears, but it didn't go out front, and he
sang with us for a whole show to just sing
along with us. And I was preparing him just in
case we needed him for the Christmas shows. We didn't
need him for the Christmas shows because Joe finished every
(10:35):
one of them. But shortly after the last Christmas show
when we took we walked Joe off the stage and
we put him in his wheelchair and he whispered in
my ear. He said, ay, I'm done. I'm going to
go home and take care of my medical problems. Well.
The next morning he picked up the phone and called
(10:58):
Ben James and said Ben, get on your singing bridges.
I'm done, And Joe actually hired Ben James and Ben
has done a splendid job for us. We'll cut a
new album with him last year. It's done really good.
It's called Mama's Boys, and we're getting ready to cut
(11:19):
another album in November. We'll be going back into the
studio just we called the tour this past year, the
American made Farewell Tour, and we thought maybe Joe could
do some of those dates, but he just didn't feel
like it, and that fifty dates turned into seventy five. Well,
(11:45):
we got toward Christmas and we thought, I thought we
were going to hang it up at the end of
twenty four. About two months before Christmas, the other three
guys came up to the front of the bus. I
had DVR basketball game or something and I was watching
it and they said came up and said, would you
(12:09):
mind turning that off and meeting with the three of
us for a bit? And I said no, not at all,
So I turned it off to ask them what they
had on their mind. They said, we want to keep
working and I said, well, we normally have the next
year fully booked by the beginning of summertime. And here
(12:32):
we are two months before Christmas, and you're telling me
you want to work next year. We don't have one
date booked that in the two thousand and twenty five.
They said, that's okay. I said, well, it's going to
be very soft. I said, as you know, I don't
(12:52):
have anybody left to go home to. For those of
you who do not know, I lost my wife last year.
And so I said, but we're still singing really good,
and as good as we've been singing. And if you
guys want to work, I've always wanted to work. I
(13:12):
love working. I do better emotionally and every other way
when I'm working. I love to stay busy. And so
I said, it's going to be really soft for the
first part of the year, but we'll probably make it
up in the last part of the year. How much
you want to work, they said, well, we're doing seventy
five this year. That sounds good for twenty five. So
(13:38):
we went to work, and the last time I looked
in my book, we're working sixty nine days this year,
so within six days of what we worked last year.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And last time I talked to them, they still had
two or three more days on hole, so we probably
get close to seventy five days this year.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Well, you're going to try to be on the road
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Really it Oh, we've already got dates authors twenty twenty six.
They're already in the book.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Good Good, Now, a lot of people going.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
We're going to keep going till the Good Lord says
it's enough.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
A lot of people may not know this, but going
back list to a few previous interviews with you, the
Okra's Boys would have been disbanded if you had not
joined the group in the nick of time.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Well, I had left the profits qurt At. They had
offered me a job, but I couldn't take it right
because I've been drafted. So I had to go back
to Paris, Texas, actually Taylortown, Texas, and my parents took
me up to Paris where I got on a Greyhound
bus with all of the other draftees and we were
(14:48):
rode the bust of Fort Worth, Texas, where we were
all inducted, inducted into Uncle Sam's United States Army and
along with the all of the other guys, I was
told I was going to Vietnam. Well, some things changed
when they found a heart condition that I'd had all
(15:09):
my life, and they released me with a medical discharge,
and I bought a new car, and I drove all
night and went directly to the RCA building, the second
floor where the Oak Rage Boys office was located. I
walked into the office and Pat Talent was their secretary.
(15:33):
She had the phone up to her ear and she said,
oh my God, and put the put the phone down
on the receiver and took me by the hand, escorted
me into the inner office, and there the three of
them were and they said, wow, what are you doing here?
And I said, I came looking for a job. They said,
(15:55):
we thought you were in the army. I said I was,
but I got out and they said, well, let's go sing.
So we went to a little Baptist church on Trinity Lane,
sang two songs. They said, just stay right here. We
need to go in here and have a meeting. They
went into a little Sunday school room there and met
(16:16):
for about fifteen minutes, came back out and offered me
a full partnership in the Oak Ridge Boys and a
full partnership in our publishing companies. And that's been almost
sixty years ago, and I've had the same job ever since.
I've never regretted it. I learned something shortly after that.
(16:39):
I learned that Herman Harper, who was managing the group
at that time, had just told Pat Talent, try to
get Dwayne Allen on the phone one more time. If
you can't get him, we're going to disband the group. Well,
I had left the profits quartet, I had driven Parish
(17:01):
Sex Has, got on a Greyhound bus with other draftees,
been inducted into the army, was in the army, got
out of the army, bought her new car, broke all
night long back to Nashville, Tennessee, and walked in at
the exact time that they said, try to get Dwayne
(17:22):
Allen one more time, and if we can't get him,
we're going to disband the Oakridge Boys. I've always thought
that this job was a God thing. Yes, And since
I was six years old, I remember down in the
cottonfield praying that someday I would get the job of
my dreams, and that's singing in a harmony based quartet.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
God works mysterious ways. I know your faith is very
very important to you, and last year was rough you
mentioned the loss of your wife, the loss of Joe
William Ley Golding, losing a child. Your faith is very
very important to you. How do you get by every day?
Is there anything that you could recommend to somebody right
now listening to us, it's going through some rough times.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, I thought that was pretty rough because between my
wife and Joe, there was about a four month period
of time there we lost sixteen people in the oak
Ridge Boys family or my family, or just the people
that worked with us. And it got to where I
was almost afraid Bob to open up a letter or
(18:33):
pick up the phone. I didn't know who might be next.
And I really I withdrew from everything except doing business.
And I would go to the bus and go right
directly to the bus, and when it came time for
(18:54):
a show, or go directly to the stage, directly back
to the bus, have food brought to me. Because I
couldn't complete a sentence, my voice started quivering and I
just couldn't control my emotions. It was a very heavy
time for me, but the music helpt to heal me,
(19:16):
and their very music that I have files from people
that have written to me over the years and have
said that this music helpt me get through a rough
time in my marriage, or this song helped our son
get off of drugs, or this song helped my husband
(19:40):
get off of alcohol, or just this that or the
other I have. I've just got files of letters of
people that our music has helped to heal them. Well.
Now that same music, sometimes the same exact songs I
(20:02):
have been finding, and I'm still finding that music is
helping to heal me. And I just thank God that
we picked good songs that have healing power in them.
That's not necessarily meaning that they're all gospel songs. I
(20:24):
think God made all music. It's up to us to
pick the right music. I've always read in the Bible
that God is love and that's his favorite gift is love.
And when I sang a love song, it might be
a country song, but I always sang it to my
wife and I felt it. I felt it just as
(20:48):
spiritually as I could if I were singing an all
gospel song. I just felt, and always have felt, that
God made music. And there only two top types of music.
In my way of thinking. There's good music and there's
bad music. So I just try to pick good music,
(21:10):
good music that has some kind of a positive effect
on people.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That's words of thoughts. We're very words of thoughts. You're
right about music being healing. I lost my dad. It's
been five weeks now, and it is some of the
roughest times. I never imagined that I've been going through
this every day when it just suddenly will hit you
out of the blue and stuff. But music is just
(21:39):
so much full of healing power. Healing power, that's what
it is. It's it, you know. But we're praying for you.
We're praying for you, and we love the Okrage Boys
and I can't wait to see you guys October third
at the Hotspot in Cedar Park. I'm just going to
hit a few things people may not know about the
(22:01):
Okrage Boys. You guys are part of one of my
favorite Paul Simon songs, Slip Sliding Away. Yet people don't.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Know that that was our first gold record.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
How did you get that?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Paul Simon fleuis to New York first class, one of
the few times we've ever gotten to fly first class,
and he he treated us like kings and we got
to sit around with him and talk about Yankees back
baseball and saying ooz and Oz behind him on slip
(22:34):
slide the way. We just love Paul Simon and Uh
we stayed up there with him in the studio for
about two days, calling in uh Chinese or Japanese food,
uh to to eat right there in the studio, and
we just lived with that song until we got it
(22:54):
exactly like he wanted it. And he said, Uh, I've
got everything like I wanted you guy, asking U go
catch a plane and go back home. I'm fixing go
see uh the Anxious Player baseball game. So we had.
We had a wonderful time with Paul Simon. He was
he was just he was so nice to us and
(23:16):
we we loved working with him. And that was the
first gold record we ever received.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'll be what a great song. You'll never listen to
it the same way our listeners right now you listen
to the Okraage Boys Let's fly Away. Uh. Is it
true that you've got a bridge and a road named
after you in East Texas?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, they started working on that and UH, they asked me,
you know, would you would you consider having a bridge
named after you? And uh, there was some talk about
naming the bridge that crosses Red River and into Oklahoma,
and I told him that I didn't really think that
(23:56):
that would be proper because that's one state, one state
into another state, and I don't feel like that that
my name or my career fits that. And they said, well,
there's a bridge that crosses Big Sandy Upper Sandy Creek
(24:21):
that runs through your father's farm. How does that sound?
And I said, that sounds exactly like me, because that
little bridge on that little road, which is a black
top road, not a highway, that that little creek there
is where I learned to fish, and we skinny dipped
(24:44):
in that in that creek. I learned to swim there
and it ran right through the bottom part of my
father's farm, and it meant the world to me. They
named out a two mile stretch of road that runs
in front of my house, the house where I was raised,
(25:08):
and the people have remodeled and remodeled that house. It
looks so for you. They let us go through it,
and uh. I went down for the christening of the
opening of the bridge and the road and very special.
It was just a breathtaking experience for me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That's great. Now, you didn't tell anybody you skinny dipped
in that road dude, did you Of.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Course I did. All country boys. Did you know we've
gone our We've gone our jeans or whatever we were wearing,
which from down to skiny dip in the in the
in the creeks, in the rivers there Very seldom did
we even have a bathing suit with us.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Did you ever go noodling catching catfish?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You know, I've never done that, but a lot of
people for around where I live did do that, And
I just I always felt like there might be a
water monas somewhere in there too, And I never had
as a country saying would be, I never had a
hankering to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You just can't take a text out of somebody's moved
to Tennessee, can you.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, I've never really tried. I'm a text in at heart,
but I live in the part of Tennessee where a
lot of the Texas language is accepted here because there's
a lot there are a lot of people that are
from Texas that land in Nashville because of the music industry.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
True true, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I appreciate you taking
the time to chat with me today, and we look
forward to seeing the Ukrage Boys American.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Tour talk with you today and I vout all the
people to come out. We're going to have a good
time when we come to Texas. We always have a
good I tell everybody, I can be in a dead sleep,
and when that bus crosses the line and we come
into Texas, I come wide awake in my sleep because
(27:13):
there's just something about coming back home to Texas.
On the line with us right now, the legendary Dwayne
Allen of the Oakridge Boys First Fall Mystery. Allen, thanks
for taking the time to talk to me today. I
want to tell you I've been in radio. I first
got in radio in nineteen seventy seven in Sweetwater, Texas,
and one of my jobs was to play the Sunday
morning gospel, so I can tell you I'm sitting there,
(00:21):
I'm playing the Oakridge Boys. I get to know the
Oakridge Boys as a gospel group, and then a few
months later we get a country I I'm in at
the radio station called y'all come Back Saloon, start spinning that.
You know. One of my favorite songs that I would
play all the time on there was I'll Be True
to You, which that was to be honest with You.
That was my high school sweethearts. That was our song
(00:43):
back then which you sing that. And then another song
I would spend off that album all the time on
the air at KXOX was a song called You're the One,
and I fell in love with another side of the
Oakridge Boys, and I have been a big fans since
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's kind of interesting that you say that because we
were working with the Jim Halsey Company and he was
putting us on with different acts to intro introduce us
to the country music audience. And this was just as
our album was coming out or getting ready to come out.
(01:23):
We were co headlining with Mel Tillis at the Sparks
Nugget at Sparks, Nevada, and I had a lot of
time to talk with mel Tillis. Mail was a great
song man and I loved Mail. He was really smart,
and I just I gleaned all I could from people
(01:46):
like Mel Tillis and Timmy Rogers and Charlie Daniels, and
these were just good friends of mine and I would
ask him a thousand questions. But one thing that Mel
Tillis taught me on releasing they All come Back Saloon album.
He said, when you're releasing that album, this will be
(02:09):
your first single. Pick a song that goes up the
charts fast, and you probably need an uptempo song, and
don't expect it to just sell a million copies or
set the world on fire. But what you want to
do is get everybody's attention and it'll move up the
(02:30):
charts fast, and it may get to number one. It
may not, but you just need to get the people's attention.
It won't really stay there a long time. But what
you need to do then is find another song on
the album and follow it with a song that is
kind of similar in nature, an uptempos on a happy song,
(02:54):
and keep bringing it. So the first single was a
all come back saloon and we got to about his attention.
It got up to number two nationally, but couldn't go
further because there was a song and number one position
called Heaven Is Just a sin away of the singles,
and we couldn't get into number one there nationally. We
(03:18):
did locally in most every market, but we just we
hadn't learned how to time it perfectly yet. So we
followed with You're the One in the Million and it
got into the top five as well. But then mal
Tilly said, what you want to do for your third
single is you want to go for the heart and
(03:38):
soul of the woman because the women buy more albums
than anybody, and you want to really have a good
love song that goes right to her heart. So release
I'll Be True to You for your third single. That
song was a screaming number one. It was selling so
(04:02):
much that ABC DOT later became MCA Records, but at
this time it was ABC DOT. They were yelling at
us to give them more albums to sell. We need
another product, going to the studio and cut us another album.
(04:22):
So we did, and I'll Be True to You we
was still selling. It was still hot on the market.
By the time we got a new album ready for
them to sell, I'll Be True to You was still hot.
So they put it on the second album too, I'll
be So it's on two albums and instead of having
(04:44):
three singles off of the second album, we just had
two because they carried over I'll Be True to You
to the second album too.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I never knew that through, but I got to tell you,
everybody in Sweetwater, Texas heard that song dozens of times
when I was on the air Darnet three hour airshift.
I can tell you it's been quite a ride.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Adobody wanted to hear that song. That there's somebody that
that song applied to, right, And I think I think
that's uh, that's the secret of great songwriting. It doesn't
have to be the same story, but you just know
somebody that it does apply with.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's real life. It's real life. And that's one thing
I love about country music. Real life. A lot of
people may not know this, but you and I know this.
With every year I'm a member of the Texas Radio
Hall of Fame, that I know that we have. We
try to get you in every year you spent some
time in radio?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
How many years in radio?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Last two and a half years of college. I had
my own radio show at KPOT in Paris, Texas, and
I sold my own advertisement. I wrote my own script
in my own spots, and I collected the money. And
Jeff Methin, who was the manager of KPLT in Paris,
(06:05):
he let me look at the rate card and double
what was on the rate card and I could keep
the part that I doubled and help me with my
college expenses. That's what I got paid.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I paid them the rate and then I got
to keep a charge twice of what it would cost
to buy a spot on another program, and I got
to keep the rest. And that helped me pay my
expenses for college. And I had an hour a day,
six days a week, and forty five minutes on Sunday
(06:45):
and I would go I would go back to Paris
every Saturday morning, and I would go around to all
my sponsors and see if they wanted to change anything
on their spots for the coming week and collect money.
And then would I go around to see all of
them before noon. Usually I would get around to all
(07:09):
of them. Then I would head to the radio station,
into the production room, and I would stay there until
sometime after midnight or into the wee hours of the morning,
finishing six hours and forty five minutes of radio time
and record all of the shows that would be played
next the following week.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's unbelievable and I hope that we get to celebrate
in your future. You become a member of the Texas
Radio Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh, I know that there have been a few people
that have nominated me, and I've never really become a
Hall of Fame, member of the radio Hall of Fame,
but I've been honored so much by the Texas Country
Music Hall of Fame and the Texas Got Music Hall
(08:01):
of Fame. They're both in Carthage, Texas. And my home
state has honored me so many times, and I'm always
a proud Texan. And my years at radio were some
of the most productive years of my entire growing up experience.
I learned a lot there and I cherish those days.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I'm going to nominate you for next year. Can
I do that?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh? Well, thank you very much. I think how about
making it someday?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You will? You will, you will. We were talking before
I started the interview. Even though the tour is called
the American Made Farewell Tour, Oh rich, boys aren't going
away anytime soon, thank goodness. You guys are getting ready
to go back in the studio November work on another album. Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, you know we decided we back in twenty twenty three.
In the summer, Joe came to all of the rest
of us and he said, boys, you know that I've
got this disease and it's not getting better. But I'm
going to do my best to do all of the
(09:08):
Christmas shows. And so I said, well, Joe, there are
people who are wanting to book us for next year.
How do you feel about working next year? He said, well,
if I can work all the Christmas shows, if I
feel like it, I'd love to work next year, which
would be twenty four. And I said, well, how does
(09:31):
fifty dates sound to you? And he said that sounds great.
We had this young man that we had already talked to.
Joe was very aware of him. He had been a
friend of ours, a young man that Joe was his hero.
In fact, we still have yet to rehearse with him.
(09:51):
He knows everything Joe has ever recorded. And so we
took him out on the road with us and let
him play guitar in the band, and we hooked up
a sound set with our stage monitor guy where he
could sing with the other three of us in his ears.
He could hear what he sounded like with us in
(10:14):
his ears, but it didn't go out front, and he
sang with us for a whole show to just sing
along with us. And I was preparing him just in
case we needed him for the Christmas shows. We didn't
need him for the Christmas shows because Joe finished every
(10:35):
one of them. But shortly after the last Christmas show
when we took we walked Joe off the stage and
we put him in his wheelchair and he whispered in
my ear. He said, ay, I'm done. I'm going to
go home and take care of my medical problems. Well.
The next morning he picked up the phone and called
(10:58):
Ben James and said Ben, get on your singing bridges.
I'm done, And Joe actually hired Ben James and Ben
has done a splendid job for us. We'll cut a
new album with him last year. It's done really good.
It's called Mama's Boys, and we're getting ready to cut
(11:19):
another album in November. We'll be going back into the
studio just we called the tour this past year, the
American made Farewell Tour, and we thought maybe Joe could
do some of those dates, but he just didn't feel
like it, and that fifty dates turned into seventy five. Well,
(11:45):
we got toward Christmas and we thought, I thought we
were going to hang it up at the end of
twenty four. About two months before Christmas, the other three
guys came up to the front of the bus. I
had DVR basketball game or something and I was watching
it and they said came up and said, would you
(12:09):
mind turning that off and meeting with the three of
us for a bit? And I said no, not at all,
So I turned it off to ask them what they
had on their mind. They said, we want to keep
working and I said, well, we normally have the next
year fully booked by the beginning of summertime. And here
(12:32):
we are two months before Christmas, and you're telling me
you want to work next year. We don't have one
date booked that in the two thousand and twenty five.
They said, that's okay. I said, well, it's going to
be very soft. I said, as you know, I don't
(12:52):
have anybody left to go home to. For those of
you who do not know, I lost my wife last year.
And so I said, but we're still singing really good,
and as good as we've been singing. And if you
guys want to work, I've always wanted to work. I
(13:12):
love working. I do better emotionally and every other way
when I'm working. I love to stay busy. And so
I said, it's going to be really soft for the
first part of the year, but we'll probably make it
up in the last part of the year. How much
you want to work, they said, well, we're doing seventy
five this year. That sounds good for twenty five. So
(13:38):
we went to work, and the last time I looked
in my book, we're working sixty nine days this year,
so within six days of what we worked last year.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And last time I talked to them, they still had
two or three more days on hole, so we probably
get close to seventy five days this year.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Well, you're going to try to be on the road
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Really it Oh, we've already got dates authors twenty twenty six.
They're already in the book.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Good Good, Now, a lot of people going.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
We're going to keep going till the Good Lord says
it's enough.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
A lot of people may not know this, but going
back list to a few previous interviews with you, the
Okra's Boys would have been disbanded if you had not
joined the group in the nick of time.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Well, I had left the profits qurt At. They had
offered me a job, but I couldn't take it right
because I've been drafted. So I had to go back
to Paris, Texas, actually Taylortown, Texas, and my parents took
me up to Paris where I got on a Greyhound
bus with all of the other draftees and we were
(14:48):
rode the bust of Fort Worth, Texas, where we were
all inducted, inducted into Uncle Sam's United States Army and
along with the all of the other guys, I was
told I was going to Vietnam. Well, some things changed
when they found a heart condition that I'd had all
(15:09):
my life, and they released me with a medical discharge,
and I bought a new car, and I drove all
night and went directly to the RCA building, the second
floor where the Oak Rage Boys office was located. I
walked into the office and Pat Talent was their secretary.
(15:33):
She had the phone up to her ear and she said,
oh my God, and put the put the phone down
on the receiver and took me by the hand, escorted
me into the inner office, and there the three of
them were and they said, wow, what are you doing here?
And I said, I came looking for a job. They said,
(15:55):
we thought you were in the army. I said I was,
but I got out and they said, well, let's go sing.
So we went to a little Baptist church on Trinity Lane,
sang two songs. They said, just stay right here. We
need to go in here and have a meeting. They
went into a little Sunday school room there and met
(16:16):
for about fifteen minutes, came back out and offered me
a full partnership in the Oak Ridge Boys and a
full partnership in our publishing companies. And that's been almost
sixty years ago, and I've had the same job ever since.
I've never regretted it. I learned something shortly after that.
(16:39):
I learned that Herman Harper, who was managing the group
at that time, had just told Pat Talent, try to
get Dwayne Allen on the phone one more time. If
you can't get him, we're going to disband the group. Well,
I had left the profits quartet, I had driven Parish
(17:01):
Sex Has, got on a Greyhound bus with other draftees,
been inducted into the army, was in the army, got
out of the army, bought her new car, broke all
night long back to Nashville, Tennessee, and walked in at
the exact time that they said, try to get Dwayne
(17:22):
Allen one more time, and if we can't get him,
we're going to disband the Oakridge Boys. I've always thought
that this job was a God thing. Yes, And since
I was six years old, I remember down in the
cottonfield praying that someday I would get the job of
my dreams, and that's singing in a harmony based quartet.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
God works mysterious ways. I know your faith is very
very important to you, and last year was rough you
mentioned the loss of your wife, the loss of Joe
William Ley Golding, losing a child. Your faith is very
very important to you. How do you get by every day?
Is there anything that you could recommend to somebody right
now listening to us, it's going through some rough times.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, I thought that was pretty rough because between my
wife and Joe, there was about a four month period
of time there we lost sixteen people in the oak
Ridge Boys family or my family, or just the people
that worked with us. And it got to where I
was almost afraid Bob to open up a letter or
(18:33):
pick up the phone. I didn't know who might be next.
And I really I withdrew from everything except doing business.
And I would go to the bus and go right
directly to the bus, and when it came time for
(18:54):
a show, or go directly to the stage, directly back
to the bus, have food brought to me. Because I
couldn't complete a sentence, my voice started quivering and I
just couldn't control my emotions. It was a very heavy
time for me, but the music helpt to heal me,
(19:16):
and their very music that I have files from people
that have written to me over the years and have
said that this music helpt me get through a rough
time in my marriage, or this song helped our son
get off of drugs, or this song helped my husband
(19:40):
get off of alcohol, or just this that or the
other I have. I've just got files of letters of
people that our music has helped to heal them. Well.
Now that same music, sometimes the same exact songs I
(20:02):
have been finding, and I'm still finding that music is
helping to heal me. And I just thank God that
we picked good songs that have healing power in them.
That's not necessarily meaning that they're all gospel songs. I
(20:24):
think God made all music. It's up to us to
pick the right music. I've always read in the Bible
that God is love and that's his favorite gift is love.
And when I sang a love song, it might be
a country song, but I always sang it to my
wife and I felt it. I felt it just as
(20:48):
spiritually as I could if I were singing an all
gospel song. I just felt, and always have felt, that
God made music. And there only two top types of music.
In my way of thinking. There's good music and there's
bad music. So I just try to pick good music,
(21:10):
good music that has some kind of a positive effect
on people.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That's words of thoughts. We're very words of thoughts. You're
right about music being healing. I lost my dad. It's
been five weeks now, and it is some of the
roughest times. I never imagined that I've been going through
this every day when it just suddenly will hit you
out of the blue and stuff. But music is just
(21:39):
so much full of healing power. Healing power, that's what
it is. It's it, you know. But we're praying for you.
We're praying for you, and we love the Okrage Boys
and I can't wait to see you guys October third
at the Hotspot in Cedar Park. I'm just going to
hit a few things people may not know about the
(22:01):
Okrage Boys. You guys are part of one of my
favorite Paul Simon songs, Slip Sliding Away. Yet people don't.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Know that that was our first gold record.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
How did you get that?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Paul Simon fleuis to New York first class, one of
the few times we've ever gotten to fly first class,
and he he treated us like kings and we got
to sit around with him and talk about Yankees back
baseball and saying ooz and Oz behind him on slip
(22:34):
slide the way. We just love Paul Simon and Uh
we stayed up there with him in the studio for
about two days, calling in uh Chinese or Japanese food,
uh to to eat right there in the studio, and
we just lived with that song until we got it
(22:54):
exactly like he wanted it. And he said, Uh, I've
got everything like I wanted you guy, asking U go
catch a plane and go back home. I'm fixing go
see uh the Anxious Player baseball game. So we had.
We had a wonderful time with Paul Simon. He was
he was just he was so nice to us and
(23:16):
we we loved working with him. And that was the
first gold record we ever received.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'll be what a great song. You'll never listen to
it the same way our listeners right now you listen
to the Okraage Boys Let's fly Away. Uh. Is it
true that you've got a bridge and a road named
after you in East Texas?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, they started working on that and UH, they asked me,
you know, would you would you consider having a bridge
named after you? And uh, there was some talk about
naming the bridge that crosses Red River and into Oklahoma,
and I told him that I didn't really think that
(23:56):
that would be proper because that's one state, one state
into another state, and I don't feel like that that
my name or my career fits that. And they said, well,
there's a bridge that crosses Big Sandy Upper Sandy Creek
(24:21):
that runs through your father's farm. How does that sound?
And I said, that sounds exactly like me, because that
little bridge on that little road, which is a black
top road, not a highway, that that little creek there
is where I learned to fish, and we skinny dipped
(24:44):
in that in that creek. I learned to swim there
and it ran right through the bottom part of my
father's farm, and it meant the world to me. They
named out a two mile stretch of road that runs
in front of my house, the house where I was raised,
(25:08):
and the people have remodeled and remodeled that house. It
looks so for you. They let us go through it,
and uh. I went down for the christening of the
opening of the bridge and the road and very special.
It was just a breathtaking experience for me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That's great. Now, you didn't tell anybody you skinny dipped
in that road dude, did you Of.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Course I did. All country boys. Did you know we've
gone our We've gone our jeans or whatever we were wearing,
which from down to skiny dip in the in the
in the creeks, in the rivers there Very seldom did
we even have a bathing suit with us.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Did you ever go noodling catching catfish?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You know, I've never done that, but a lot of
people for around where I live did do that, And
I just I always felt like there might be a
water monas somewhere in there too, And I never had
as a country saying would be, I never had a
hankering to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You just can't take a text out of somebody's moved
to Tennessee, can you.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, I've never really tried. I'm a text in at heart,
but I live in the part of Tennessee where a
lot of the Texas language is accepted here because there's
a lot there are a lot of people that are
from Texas that land in Nashville because of the music industry.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
True true, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I appreciate you taking
the time to chat with me today, and we look
forward to seeing the Ukrage Boys American.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Tour talk with you today and I vout all the
people to come out. We're going to have a good
time when we come to Texas. We always have a
good I tell everybody, I can be in a dead sleep,
and when that bus crosses the line and we come
into Texas, I come wide awake in my sleep because
(27:13):
there's just something about coming back home to Texas.
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