When the hit-making country quartet the Oak Ridge Boys is inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this month, longtime member Richard Sterban will break ground as the first New Jersey native so enshrined in the 54-year history of the Nashville institution.
Considering his resonant bass voice on such Oak Ridge Boys hits as “Elvira,” “Dream On” and “Bobbie Sue,” it’s hard to imagine that Sterban started as a boy soprano. “By seventh grade, I was singing tenor,” says Sterban, who was born in Camden, raised in Oaklyn and went to Collingswood High School. “The summer between my seventh- and eighth-grade years, my voice made a drastic change,” he recalls. His teacher put him in the bass section. “I’ve been there ever since,” he says.
Sterban studied voice at Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey) and performed with several vocal groups, eventually spending nearly two years backing Elvis Presley on tour. It was a sweet gig, but Sterban jumped at a chance to join the Oaks in 1972.
“History has proven that I made a pretty good decision,” he declares.
Although a longtime fixture in the Nashville community, Sterban hasn’t lost his Jersey connections. A number of years ago, he fulfilled a dream of owning a place at the Shore by purchasing two condos in Atlantic City. Too busy to spend much time there, he has since sold the condos, but he still visits a sister, aunts and cousins who live in Jersey—and he still has his Jersey pride.
“New Jersey gets a bad rap,” he says. “Sometimes when I say I’m from New Jersey, people will actually even laugh. But one thing for sure, when you say you are from New Jersey, you are going to get some kind of a reaction, good or bad.”