EDITOR’S NOTE: Before the flood of new releases begins in 2019, we’re looking back at some releases from last year that we didn’t get a chance to write up when they were released. The Oak Ridge Boys’ 17th Avenue Revival was released in March.
“Following our induction to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015, we wanted to do something monumental,” says Joe Bonsall, the stalwart tenor singer in the Oak Ridge Boys. “Dave Cobb produced our album The Boys Are Back in 2007, and we wondered if we could get him to work with us again. When we sat down with Dave at The Pie Wagon in Nashville, he told us we were family to him. He suggested we go back to our roots of gospel, which we’d also been considering, but to combine gospel with the early rhythms of rock and roll, like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.”
Cobb gathered the Oak Ridge Boys at the legendary RCA Studio A, where the singers stood around one mic and shouted acclamations of joy and delivered tender, touching vocals on poignant ballads about regret and hope. Cobb gathered a handful of new songs — written by artists from Brandy Clark (“Pray to Jesus”), Vince Gill and Ashley Monroe (“If I Die”), and Jamey Johnson, Larry Shell and Buddy Cannon (“There Will Be Light”) — to the traditional spiritual “Walk in Jerusalem” and older songs such as Rhea Miller’s “I’d Rather Have Jesus” and Lead Belly’s “Let It Shine on Me.” Just like preachers and song leaders in old-fashioned tent revivals, the Oak Ridge Boys run energetically through these songs on 17th Avenue Revival, generating jubilation and joy as they go along.
The album opens with Aaron Raitiere and Mando Saenz’s jaunty, galloping “Brand New Star (Up in Heaven Tonight),” a paean to a beloved soul gone onto his or her heavenly reward. The singer knows his beloved is well because his beloved’s “love shines down” on him as a “brand new star in heaven tonight.” With piano chords that recall Elvis’s gospel songs — and Mike Webb’s piano solo on the bridge would be right at home in a local church service — floating under the group’ vocals, the Oak Ridge Boys deliver a message of hope and joy. “Walk in Jerusalem” opens with a piano roll that opens into Richard Sterban’s striding bass vocals. Webb’s stride piano perfectly weaves under the call-and-response structure of the song in which Sterban calls out the main lines as the rest of the Boys respond with the affirmative desire to “walk in Jerusalem just like John.” The Oak Ridge Boys deliver Clark’s “Pray Like Jesus” as if it were a Jerry Lee Lewis song; they capture the nod-and-a-wink character of the song musically and with their lively vocals. “If I Die” is a perfect gospel song as it moves from the singer’s reflections on what death will be like if he’s drinking or cheating to reflecting on the comfort he’ll feel if he dies when he’s praying. Cobb channels Willie Nelson in his guitar solo on the bridge. The album closes with the jubilant “Let It Shine on Me,” which begins slowly but quickly picks up tempo, escalating to a shouting, joyous affirmation of the power of God’s light to overcome the darkness in which we might be lost.
The Oak Ridge Boys are at the top of their game on 17th Avenue Revival. They continue to climb higher and higher with their vocal ingenuity and their musical vision; this album refreshes and renews and revives us.
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