We were ready for this success. Touring with Kenny Rogers on his aforementioned ninety-day Full House Tour, as well as a plethora of big country hits and awards that resulted in five gold albums through 1980, certainly helped us build the vehicle that would carry us into the big time. But it was a little song about a lady named ELVIRA that propelled us to a level, which existed way beyond our wildest imagination. Elvira was not only responsible for selling millions of records, but it took The Oak Ridge Boys from being a very successful country music act into becoming a household name.
In 1981, everyone was singing Oom Pah Pah Mau Mau with the Oaks. Little kids loved the song. It was played at seventh inning stretch at local softball leagues on up to an “Elvira night” at a minor league park such as Wrigley Field. It was played during football games from county high schools to UCLA to the Minnesota Vikings. Every club band in every lounge in America was trying to sing like Richard Sterban. High school and college marching bands were playing the song, and its success was the talk of the town all across the country.
This may not sound significant, but the underlying surge that hit us was because people knew that we were the ones singing the song. Several big TV appearances on shows like The Tonight Show and eventually our own HBO music special iced it for us. Jim Halsey made sure we got all of the mileage we could out of this song. I tell you that we could not go anywhere without people yelling, “Elvira,” at us and in fact, they still do it today over twenty-two years later. Elvira was the kind of music phenomenon that only comes around once in a great while, and it wasn’t even a new song.
Dallas Frazier, who wrote it, had a marginal hit with it in the early sixties, and it had been recorded by several acts including Rodney Crowell and ironically, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. A songplugger for Acuff Rose Music and a good friend of the Oaks named Ronnie Gant was in a bar in Texas and heard a house band sing the song when his wheels started to turn. Acuff Rose published the song, and he thought of the Oaks immediately. The Boys had never cut anything like this, and he thought it could provide something a bit different.
He returned to Nashville and gave the song and the idea to our producer Ron Chancey. Ron thought we should record it for our up and coming Fancy Free album, and he thought I should sing the lead on the verses, and that Richard should do the Oom Pah Pah’s all by himself.
We recorded the song in one take and hit the road. It was January of 1981, and The Oak Ridge Boys were playing a string of dates in the Pacific Northwest. On an afternoon in Spokane, Washington, we ran Elvira with the band at sound check and decided to add it to the show that night. The Spokane Opera House was sold out and we proceeded to rip through our hits of the day, Saloon, You’re The One, Sail Away, Dream On, Trying To Love Two Woman, and so on.
I stopped it all down about half way through and told the audience about our up and coming album on MCA, to be called Fancy Free. Then the band hit the intro to Elvira and we marched into history. The audience in Spokane reacted as if we had given them each a condo in Montserrat. We had had a lot of success up to this point but this was incredible. We sang Elvira again. Then…… we sang it again!!!! We backed up and took a bow and Duane and I looked at each other wide-eyed. All the ACE said to me was, “Whoop!”
It was a great moment.
In 1981, everyone was singing Oom Pah Pah Mau Mau with the Oaks. Little kids loved the song. It was played at seventh inning stretch at local softball leagues on up to an “Elvira night” at a minor league park such as Wrigley Field. It was played during football games from county high schools to UCLA to the Minnesota Vikings. Every club band in every lounge in America was trying to sing like Richard Sterban. High school and college marching bands were playing the song, and its success was the talk of the town all across the country.
This may not sound significant, but the underlying surge that hit us was because people knew that we were the ones singing the song. Several big TV appearances on shows like The Tonight Show and eventually our own HBO music special iced it for us. Jim Halsey made sure we got all of the mileage we could out of this song. I tell you that we could not go anywhere without people yelling, “Elvira,” at us and in fact, they still do it today over twenty-two years later. Elvira was the kind of music phenomenon that only comes around once in a great while, and it wasn’t even a new song.
Dallas Frazier, who wrote it, had a marginal hit with it in the early sixties, and it had been recorded by several acts including Rodney Crowell and ironically, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. A songplugger for Acuff Rose Music and a good friend of the Oaks named Ronnie Gant was in a bar in Texas and heard a house band sing the song when his wheels started to turn. Acuff Rose published the song, and he thought of the Oaks immediately. The Boys had never cut anything like this, and he thought it could provide something a bit different.
He returned to Nashville and gave the song and the idea to our producer Ron Chancey. Ron thought we should record it for our up and coming Fancy Free album, and he thought I should sing the lead on the verses, and that Richard should do the Oom Pah Pah’s all by himself.
We recorded the song in one take and hit the road. It was January of 1981, and The Oak Ridge Boys were playing a string of dates in the Pacific Northwest. On an afternoon in Spokane, Washington, we ran Elvira with the band at sound check and decided to add it to the show that night. The Spokane Opera House was sold out and we proceeded to rip through our hits of the day, Saloon, You’re The One, Sail Away, Dream On, Trying To Love Two Woman, and so on.
I stopped it all down about half way through and told the audience about our up and coming album on MCA, to be called Fancy Free. Then the band hit the intro to Elvira and we marched into history. The audience in Spokane reacted as if we had given them each a condo in Montserrat. We had had a lot of success up to this point but this was incredible. We sang Elvira again. Then…… we sang it again!!!! We backed up and took a bow and Duane and I looked at each other wide-eyed. All the ACE said to me was, “Whoop!”
It was a great moment.
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