One year ago today was a heartbreaking loss for the country music community. On July 9, 2024, The Oak Ridge Boys‘ Joe Bonsall passed away from ALS. He was 76 years old at the time. Bonsall announced in early 2024 that he was retiring, while The Oak Ridge Boys were on their American Made: Farewell Tour, hand-picking Ben James to take his place.
It wasn’t until Bonsall’s death was announced that it was revealed that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as ALS. Bonsall quietly battled the illness for a few years, even as his mobility declined.
“It was really hard to go through that progression, because we knew what was happening, but he didn’t want anybody to cry for him,” Duane Allen tells Everything Nash. “He didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for him. He just wanted to do the best he could, and he wanted to go out singing, and he did. Early in the year, he said, ‘I’m going to do my very best to make every Christmas show,’ and he never missed a show. He never missed a note. His voice was strong to the very last note of the last song we sang.”
When The Oak Ridge Boys announced their American Made: Farewell Tour, Bonsall hoped to be able to perform all of the shows. But at the last Christmas show of 2023, Bonsall realized he had done all he could do, and it was time for him to go home.
“Many of you know I have been battling a slow onset (over four years now) of a neuromuscular disorder,” Bonsall said at the time. “I am now at a point where walking is impossible, so I have basically retired from the road. It has just gotten too difficult. It has been a great 50 years, and I am thankful to all the Oak Ridge Boys, band, crew, and staff for the constant love and support shown to me through it all. I will never forget, and for those of you who have been constantly holding me up in prayer, I thank you and ask for you to keep on praying.”
It was Bonsall who realized he needed to stop touring, and let The Oak Ridge Boys continue without him.
“As we carried him off the stage and put him into his wheelchair, he said, ‘I’m done. I’ll call tomorrow,’ and he called Ben James,” Allen remembers. “He called Ben and said, ‘I’m done. Get on your singing britches,’ and that’s how the replacement happened. Joe Bonsall called and hired Ben James as his replacement.”
The Oak Ridge Boys continue to make music without Bonsall, and now plan on staying on the road, thanks to the addition of James. Still, the loss of Bonsall is something The Oak Ridge Boys will always mourn.
“We’re moving forward,” William Lee Golden says. “We’ve all been part of a helpless situation. It was helpless for Joe, and it’s been helpless for The Oak Ridge Boys. In everything in life, there is a time to be thankful and stand up and move forward, and that’s what The Oak Ridge Boys are doing. We’re dealing with the hand that we’ve been played. That’s how I look at it. We’re dealing with what the situation we were helpless in throughout Joe’s struggles, but everyone stood by him.”
Donations can be made to The ALS Association or the Vanderbilt Medical Center ALS and Neuroscience Research Center, in Bonsall’s name.