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Are The Oak Ridge Boys Cool Again?

The titular query above begs the question of whether or not the gospel and country vocal quartet was ever truly cool in the first place, of course. Growing up with a mainstream country station on my parental unit's radio station in the 70s and 80s, it was impossible to avoid the Oaks, and I still believe that many of their hits stand up due to the excellent gospel-based harmonies.

The reason I'm pondering their cool factor is the recent announcement that the Oak Ridge Boys will be participating in this year's South by Southwest, an event that's typically reserved for those acts deemed hip, current, or soon to be that way--not sure the Oaks fit into that mold.

They have, however, been around the musical block a few times, and they'll be participating in a seminar or panel discussion event that may give them a chance to impart some wisdom to those gathered.

If they get to sing, rest assured the guys still sound great. Here's a clip from last year in Nashville when they sang a cameo "Elvira" at a Shooter Jennings show, of all places. Guess maybe they're still cool after all, huh?

Tags: alt-country, americana, blog, boys, country, kevin, music, oak, oliver, ridge

Comment by Daniel T on March 8, 2009 at 2:49am: The Oak Ridge Boys were never uncool in my book. Glad to see they're still hanging in there and SXSW is great for them. I think they'll all get along just fine.

Comment by swt on March 9, 2009 at 12:24am: I thought they'd put that guy's beard in the Smithsonian already.

Comment by Kevin Oliver on March 9, 2009 at 2:13pm: An unexpected postscript to this: I was introduced to a woman at church yesterday, the daughter of one of our older members, and when she found out I was responsible for booking music there sometimes she informed me that her husband was one of the original Oak Ridge Boys, from back in the early gospel days--he was the tenor singer replaced by Joe Bonsall, who's still with the group. She told me there has been talk of a reunion show of some sort that would include all of the group's former members, which would be very cool indeed.