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Oaks’ New Gospel Collection Combines All-New Recordings of Old and New Song Selections

BRENTWOOD, Tenn.—May 25, 2005—Spring Hill Music Group announces The Oak Ridge Boys’ all-new Gospel music recording entitled Common Thread, which hits the shelves nationwide on Tuesday. The new recording, produced by the award-winning Michael Sykes and group member Duane Allen with direction from A&R director/producer/songwriter Phil Johnson, spans decades, featuring hits from the group’s early “quartet” years, popular tunes from recent years as well as several brand new songs. The songs are united by the “common threads” of lush four-part harmonies and Gospel music, which the group first began singing in the early 1940s.

“Gospel music has been the ‘common thread’ that has been obvious in our harmonies and subject matter throughout our career,” Allen recalls. “Even when we had our biggest country albums, there was usually at least one Gospel song on nearly every album. Common Thread is an example of where all of that is rooted—in hymns of the church, in hits of our past, in country Gospel styles, in southern Gospel blends and in new songs that show that Gospel music is still alive and well in the ‘common thread’ of The Oak Ridge Boys.”

Current group members—Duane Allen, Richard Sterban, William Lee Golden and Joe Bonsall--together since 1973, continue a harmony-driven tradition that has influenced Gospel, pop and country music and become an American mainstay.

That tradition includes such groundbreaking classic hits as “Jesus Is Coming Soon,” “I Know, I Know” and “He Did It All for Me,” each of which is featured on Common Thread, a celebration of the group’s precedent-setting Gospel music career.

The release also showcases The Oaks’ unique renditions of the timeless favorites “Amazing Grace,” “How Great Thou Art” and “I Saw the Light” in addition to Gospel melodies from their recent DOVE–nominated acoustic recording The Journey (Spring Hill Music), including the title cut and their current Gospel single, “You Don’t Have to Go Home (But You Can’t Stay Here).” Other highlights include Golden’s heartfelt and authentic performance of one of the project’s new copyrights entitled “You Can’t Fix It.”

The Oak Ridge Boys began as The Oak Ridge Quartet, and their harmonies and energy transformed the quartet scene and quickly made them what many consider to be the top quartet of the ‘50s and ‘60s. By the early ‘70s, the group’s pop-driven edge, stage performances, charisma and hit songs catapulted them into the country and pop markets, creating a broad fan base that remains today.

The Oak Ridge Boys have traveled worldwide for over 60 years and have appeared before several U.S. Presidents and foreign diplomats. They have received five GRAMMY Awards, four Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, four Academy of Country Music (ACM) honors, numerous DOVES, two American Music Awards and multiple international awards, among others.

The Oak Ridge Boys are visible on numerous television networks and maintain a busy itinerary nationwide. The group was recently named musical ambassadors for the National Anthem Project, an effort launched by the MENC (National Association of Music Education), and they released a book entitled An American Journey (New Leaf Press), a collection that chronicles highlights of their careers, in addition to their ongoing work with the Feed the Children relief organization.

The group was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2000. After three decades in the country music industry, rendering more than 170 dates a year, The Oak Ridge Boys have recently been honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame (Nashville, Tenn.) with their own exhibit—“30 Years in the Mainstream”—a display area, up through November, that captures the group’s tremendous success and contributions to country music as well as a special exhibit in tribute to their Gospel successes.

“It is always fun to retrace history,” reminisces Allen as he describes the new Common Thread recording, “…the challenge was to capture the ‘magic’ that we found when we recorded some of these songs for the first time over 30 years ago...that ‘magic’ turned out to be the first thing that happened once we started singing these great songs…great songs are always great songs…these are proven hits that we believe will make an impact again.”

Common Thread is distributed by Word Entertainment/WEA. The Oak Ridge Boys are booked by The William Morris Agency and managed by The Jim Halsey Company. For further information, visit http://www.springhillmusic.com or http://www.oakridgeboys.com

Reader Comments

You can check out my review of this recording here on SoGospelNews:
http://sogospelnews.com/index/cdreviews/comments/3884/

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