The year before “Together” was released, “The Oak Ridge Boys Have Arrived” was released. That’s a little confusing since we already know that these Oak Ridge Boys have been releasing albums since 1974. As if that wasn’t enough, there were other Oak Ridge Boys, who were not these Oak Ridge Boys, who were around in 1945. Now do you see why I have a problem with bands that continue to use a name long after an original founding member leave?
At any rate, this former Gospel Group released “The Oak Ridge Boys Have Arrived” in 1979. It only hit number five on The Billboard Top Country Album Chart, but obviously the money machine that was The Oak Ridge Boys made enough.
What do I mean when I call it a money machine? That’s a deep rabbit hole, but let’s go down shall we. Unlike a group of musicians who come together to create something, a money machine is assembled by what I call the others. That’s the Producers mainly. He’s the guy who assemble the singers who can sing, but just don’t quite know what to sing. He also has to get them song, written by people who are good at writing words and music but usually can’t sing. Once they got the songs, they have to find the musicians because the singers don’t play, or if they are like me, can’t sing and play at the same time. While it is true that even bands that sing and play what they themselves have written still need recording engineers and managers and such, they usually have a lot more say as to what direction they want to go in.
Following that line, you should know that not a single instrument on this album was written by an Oak Ridge Boy. Ah, but the Producer, Ron Chancey, knew who to get. He knew who had the money-making chops. On acoustic guitar he got Jimmy Capps, Jerry Shook, and Chip Young. He got Bobby Thompson strummin’ on the old banjo. I doubt if he could have done any better than Joe Osborn on bass. He combined that with Kenny Buttrey on drums for a no miss rhythm section. I’m sure he was deeply aware of the fact that he had one of the best when he hired Reggie Young to handle the electric guitar work. Everybody who needed a fiddler needed Buddy Spicher back then. He rounded up a bunch of horns and strings, too. You just have to put ambience on money making record. Perhaps this is the first time you are hearing some of these names. I can guarantee you that even if you don’t know their names, you have heard their playing.
As always, if you click the picture, it will whisk you off to my shop, where you can take a chance at becoming to next owner of this fine record.
As Always,
The Vulture
Vulture's Vinyl 