OAK RIDGE RETURNS

“The Boys Are Back” is the title song of the latest CD by the Oak Ridge Boys. It’s also a fact. The veteran quartet will return to Pittsburg with its 2009 Christmas show at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium.

The Oaks also visited in November 2008. “We’ve played Pittsburg several times,” said bass Richard Sterban during a telephone interview on Friday. “Pittsburg feels a little bit like home to the Oak Ridge Boys.”

This will be the quartet’s 20th annual Christmas show. “Every year it gets bigger,” Sterban said. “We used to start touring our Christmas show on the day after Thanksgiving, because we didn’t think you should sing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. But other people didn’t seem to think that.”

Besides, he added, the demand for the show is so great that the Oaks have to begin the tour earlier in the season so that they’ll have time to make all their concert dates.

“This is our busiest time of year now,” Sterban said. “We’ll be out doing this until the day before Christmas.”

The first part of the show will be devoted to fans’ favorite Oak Ridge Boys songs, as well as some new material. “We’ll open the show with ‘The Boys Are Back’,” Sterban said. “And we’ll do all the songs that the fans expect us to do.”

One of the new songs, “G.I. Joe and Lillie,” has become something of a phenomenon. It was written by Joe Bonsall, Oaks tenor, about his late parents. Joe Bonsall Jr. was a World War II veteran who returned with physical and emotional wounds, and Lillie was his devoted wife who helped him survive the bad times.

“We did that song on a TV show for Feed the Children, and a fan took the song from the show and put it on YouTube,” Sterban said. “It’s had more than 1.5 million views so far, and is still climbing.”

Following intermission will be the Christmas portion of the program. “We’ll be covering a lot of Christmas ground, and Santa will make an appearance,” Sterban said. “We’ll also have a song in honor of Mrs. Claus. After the fun songs, we’ll close out with the true meaning of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus, and we’ll have a reading from the Bible.”

All in all, he said, the show offers a great package and is suitable for the entire family.

Sterban is now celebrating his 37th year with the Oaks. A native of Camden, N.J., he started singing at the age of 6 in Sunday school. For two years prior to joining the Oak Ridge Boys, Sterban sang with J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, a gospel group that sang back-up with Elvis Presley.

“I had the pleasure of singing back-up with Elvis in 1971 and part of 1972,” he said. “I was on five of his singles, including ‘Burning Love,’ and was in his last movie, ‘Elvis on Tour’.”

However, Sterban wanted to be more than a back-up singer, and accepted an invitation from the Oak Ridge Boys to join their quartet because he thought the group had great potential.

“We’re fortunate that the group has had such longevity,” he said.

One reason for that, he said, is that the group continues to grow musically and explore new avenues.

“We’ve re-invented ourselves a little bit,” Sterban said. “We’ve been picking up a lot of young people with our new CD and songs like ‘Seven Nation Army’ by Jack White. We Twitter all the time now, and we’re on YouTube and MySpace.”

The Oaks perform 150 to 160 days out of the year. “We aren’t kids now, but one of the keys to our longevity is that the Good Lord has granted us some wisdom and we take good care of ourselves,” he said. “We still enjoy performing for the fans and the creative process of making new music. As long as we feel good, we’re going to keep on doing this.”

Tickets for the Oak Ridge Boys concert may be purchased at the Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium box office or online at www.memorialauditorium.org.