There seems to be at least one connection between professional wrestling and country music.
That thing? They never really finish their performers.
Multiple retirement matches are common among professional wrestlers, and this year in the country music industry, it is beginning to seem that way as a renowned outfit that announced its goodbye in 2024 has revealed additional tour dates for 2025 for the second time in less than a week.
Not that anyone is whining, but The Oak Ridge Boys are the most recent to join the ranks of artists who aren’t quite ready to hang up their microphones.
To be honest, the band has earned the freedom to do as they please following the successful year they just had.
This is due to the fact that in 2024, a number of deaths occurred in and around the Oak Ridge Boys.
At age 76, singer Joe Bonsall passed away in July.
After Bonsall declared in January that he was retiring from the band’s touring, it was discovered that complications from Amyotrophic Lateral Scleroris (ALS) were the cause of his death.
William Rusty Golden, the son of band member William Lee Golden, passed away shortly after that.
Additionally, frontman Duane Allen’s wife, Norah Lee Allen, passed away over Easter this year. A short while later, Allen wrote on Facebook about her death.
It was revealed that musician Richard Sterban’s wife, Donna, also lost her father just hours after Allen disclosed the death of his wife on Easter. In addition, veteran guitarist Donnie Carr’s wife, Phyllis Carr, passed away in March.
Nobody would have faulted them for riding off into the sunset after all of that was over and a farewell was said. However, according to Taste of Country, the band announced a new set of dates that extends their run until December 2025.
Regarding the updated dates via Taste of Country, Golden stated in a press statement, “We’ve had so much fun touring from city to city and getting to see everyone.”We hope you enjoy the new CD as much as we do; the reception we got to it has been fantastic. We’ll be adding more dates shortly, so visit our website often.
The band’s September 21 performance at the Bloomsburg Fair in Pennsylvania is one of the new dates.
A new set of dates for 2025 was just disclosed by Lee Greenwood, another legendary figure in country music who declared in 2023 that he was retiring from touring.