Richard Sterban

Sterban stepped away from touring after the Academy of Country Music Awards in May 2025, and in September 2025 announced he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He rejoined the group at the Grand Ole Opry on 30 and 31 January 2026 and recorded tracks for their October 2026 album Buried Treasures. He died on 14 November 2026 in Hendersonville, aged 83, of complications from bronchitis and pneumonia after a long fight with cancer. His family asked fans for continued prayers.

Richard Anthony Sterban was born on 24 April 1943 in Camden, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Collingswood. He grew up singing gospel music, attended Trenton State College and sang in Philadelphia area gospel quartets as a teenager, where he first met his future bandmate Joe Bonsall. He was a founding member of the Keystones quartet.

Sterban joined J. D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, the group that backed Elvis Presley, and spent the early 1970s singing with Presley on stage and in the studio, appearing in the documentary Elvis on Tour. In late 1972 he left to join the Oak Ridge Boys as their bass singer.

With Duane Allen, William Lee Golden and Joe Bonsall he helped turn the Oak Ridge Boys from a Southern gospel quartet into one of the most successful acts in country and pop music. The group placed 34 singles in the country top ten, 17 of them number ones, and won Grammy, CMA and ACM awards. His bass refrain on "Elvira" (1981) made the song a double platinum crossover hit, and he sang lead on "Dream On." The group joined the Grand Ole Opry and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

He also voiced NOAA Weather Radio public service recordings, announced for a classic country satellite radio channel and was a minority owner of the Nashville Sounds baseball team from 1978 to 2008. His memoir, From Elvis to Elvira, was written with Steven Robinson.

Sterban lived in Hendersonville, Tennessee, for more than 50 years. He was married to Donna and had five children, Lauren, Tori, Rich, Doug and Chris, along with grandchildren and great grandchildren. In October 2025 Hendersonville dedicated the Oak Ridge Boys Bridge over Drakes Creek, an honour he called the greatest of all because it came from his hometown.

For more than five decades Sterban's bass was the foundation of the Oak Ridge Boys' sound, and his "oom papa mow mow" remains one of the most recognisable vocal hooks in country music. He linked the Elvis era of gospel backing quartets to the country crossover boom of the 1980s, and his career is honoured in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.