Richard Sterban

Richard Sterban, whose deep bass voice anchored the Oak Ridge Boys for more than half a century and whose rumbling “oom-papa-mow-mow” made “Elvira” one of the most recognizable records in American music, died on Saturday, November 14, 2026, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He was 83. His family and the band announced that he died of complications from bronchitis and pneumonia after a long, hard battle with cancer.

Richard Anthony Sterban was born on April 24, 1943, in Camden, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Collingswood. He started singing as a boy soprano in Sunday school, and by his early teens his voice had settled into the low register that would make him famous. After graduating from Collingswood High School he studied music at Trenton State College, now The College of New Jersey, while gospel quartet singing became his first love. In the Philadelphia area he helped found the Keystones, a gospel quartet in which his lifelong friend Joe Bonsall also sang.

His talent soon carried him to J. D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, the group that backed Elvis Presley. For about a year and a half he sang behind Presley onstage and on record, and he appeared in the 1972 concert film Elvis on Tour. When the Oak Ridge Boys needed a bass singer in late 1972, he chose to leave that famous stage to pursue his dream of singing in the best vocal group in the world.

Alongside Duane Allen, William Lee Golden and Joe Bonsall, he helped carry the Oak Ridge Boys from Southern gospel into the heart of country and pop music. The group placed 34 singles in the country Top 10, 17 of them at No. 1, and his solo bass line on the 1981 crossover smash “Elvira” became his signature. He also sang lead on the group’s Top 10 cover of “Dream On.” The Oaks won Grammy, CMA and ACM awards, joined the Grand Ole Opry and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

Away from the stage, he was known as a sharp dresser and a devoted baseball fan who was a part owner of the Nashville Sounds minor league team from 1978 to 2008. He lent his voice to NOAA Weather Radio announcements and to Sirius radio’s classic country channel, and he called Hendersonville home for more than 50 years. After being treated for pancreatic cancer in 2025, he returned to the Grand Ole Opry stage with his bandmates in early 2026. He will be remembered as a man of deep faith and the steady foundation beneath one of country music’s most beloved harmonies.

Photo: Banditz71, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.