The Oak Ridge Boys have no plans of slowing down. The Country Music Hall of Fame members broke fans’ hearts in 2023 when they announced their American Made: Farewell Tour. Although a well-guarded secret, Joe Bonsall was battling Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as ALS. As his mobility was declining, Duane Allen, William Lee Golden and Richard Sterban made the heartbreaking decision to come off the road after their last run of dates with Bonsall.

But by the end of the year, Bonsall realized he couldn’t continue anymore. With dates still on the calendar, the group hired Ben James to continue in Bonsall’s place, with Bonsall himself calling James.

Bonsall tragically passed away last July. With James now a permanent part of the group, Allen says The Oak Ridge Boys have no plans of retiring. At all. Allen says the three remaining members came to Allen as a unified front.

“They said, ‘We’ve all talked, and we want to keep working. We’re not through singing yet,'” Allen tells Taste of Country.

Indeed, the road is perhaps the best place for them to be. Only a few months before Bonsall passed away, Allen’s wife, Norah Lee died, following a long illness. And only a week before the loss of Bonsall, Golden’s son, Rusty Golden, also died.

“That four months was a very difficult time for the Oak Ridge Boys,” Bonsall admits. “But we just kept believing and kept praying, and God has opened up some doors for us.”

“Right now, I don’t have any end date in sight,” he adds. “I just started my 60th year with the Oak Ridge Boys, and I have no one to come home to. Singing and the fans on the road, they’re all my family now. And this group of guys I work with, we all love each other, and we love what we do. So I don’t know when the end date will be.”

Not only are they not retiring, the Oak Ridge Boys still want to make more music. Their latest album, Mama’s Boys, was released last October. The Oak Ridge Boys might be moving on without Bonsall, but they will always feel his absence.

“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,” 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.”

There may not be a better place for the Oak Ridge Boys to heal than on the road, which is why their tour calendar remains so full.

“We’re moving forward,” Golden insists.  “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.”

Allen and Sterban are both 82 years old, while Golden is 86. Their age is little deterrent, at least to them about their future as a quartet.

“The fact that God has blessed us for so many years … when He gets His mind made up that we’ve done enough, He will tell us, ‘It is enough. Go on home,'” Allen says.

“We’ll keep singing as long as God keeps blessing our career,” he adds.

Find all of the Oak Ridge Boys’ music and upcoming shows at OakRidgeBoys.com.