Richard Sterban, a backup vocalist for Elvis Presley who went on to international acclaim as the bass singer for the Oak Ridge Boys, the country vocal quartet for whom he sang the “oom-papa-mow-mow” refrain on the 1981 blockbuster hit “Elvira,” died on Saturday in Hendersonville, Tenn. He was 83.
His death was confirmed by his family and the Oak Ridge Boys. They said that Mr. Sterban, who had cancer, had died of complications from bronchitis and pneumonia.
A singer of extraordinary range and power, Mr. Sterban could hit notes so low they could only be felt, as opposed to heard. He also could hit notes higher than many tenors can reach. His basso profundo not only anchored the Oak Ridge Boys’ gospel-steeped sound; it carried the occasional melodic lead on recordings like the group’s 1979 remake of the Righteous Brothers’ Top 40 pop hit “Dream On.”
His reverberating vocals galvanized the Oaks’ version of “Elvira,” a song that had previously been recorded by artists like Rodney Crowell and Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.
It was never more than a minor hit, though, until Mr. Sterban’s stentorian “oom-papa-mow-mow” (framed by shouts of “Giddy up!” and “Hi-ho Silver!”) transformed it into a Grammy Award-winning record, and one of the most inescapable earworms of the early 1980s.
“It absolutely carried us to another stratosphere,” Mr. Sterban explained in his 2012 memoir, “From Elvis to Elvira: My Life on Stage,” written with Steven Robinson. “The song, especially the lines I sang, was seemingly on everyone’s lips. It was unbelievable.”
With two million copies sold, “Elvira” topped the country chart, crossing over to the pop Top 10 and helping secure the Oaks’ reputation as one of the most popular vocal groups in the history of country music.
Besides Mr. Sterban, the group’s classic lineup, formed in the early 1970s, included the lead singer Duane Allen; the tenor Joe Bonsall, who died in 2024; and the baritone William Lee Golden.
The group was formed as a gospel quartet in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in the early 1940s, disbanding and reforming at least twice before Mr. Sterban and Mr. Bonsall teamed up with Mr. Allen and Mr. Golden, stabilizing what had long been a mercurial lineup. Over the next two decades, the four men modernized the group’s original gospel sound with pop-country elements, placing 17 singles at the top of the country chart and 17 others in the country Top 10.
With records like “Elvira” and “Bobbie Sue” (1982), Mr. Sterban and the Oaks infused traditional country harmony singing with techniques popularized by R&B vocal groups like the Coasters and the Dominoes. They also contributed vocals to the likes of Paul Simon’s 1977 Top 10 pop hit “Slip Slidin’ Away.”
This more far-reaching aesthetic was hardly second nature to the group, though — at least, not at first.
This was especially the case when, at a commercial low point in the mid-’70s before they found a larger country audience, they went into the studio to sing backup on Jimmy Buffett’s “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus.”
“What in the world had we gotten ourselves into?” Mr. Sterban wrote in his memoir, describing how the members of the group felt at the time. They had already been accused of being sellouts by their core gospel following for performing covers of hits by the Eagles and Olivia Newton-John in concert.
“All we could imagine,” he added, “were headlines confirming what many of our detractors already seemed to believe: ‘Oak Ridge Boys don’t love Jesus!’”
Richard Anthony Sterban was born on April 24, 1943, in Camden, N.J., one of three children of Edward and Victoria (Giordano) Sterban. The son of Polish immigrants, his father was an electrician. His mother, a native of Salandra, a township in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, worked in various settings, including a chocolate factory.
The product of a strict religious upbringing, young Richard began singing at the local Assembly of God church at 6 and went on to play tuba, sousaphone and an assortment of other brass instruments in high school. While attending Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey), he majored in music before dropping out to form the Keystone Quartet, a gospel group, in the early 1960s.
Life on the road, though, didn’t agree with some of the quartet’s members, and the group split up in early 1965, at which time Mr. Sterban took a job selling men’s wear at the Gimbels department store in northeast Philadelphia.
Shortly before that, he married Sandra Wilson, with whom he had three sons, Rich, Chris and Doug.
In 1970, Mr. Sterban was hired to sing bass in the touring edition of J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, one of the premier Southern Gospel groups of the day.
A year later, the Stamps were hired to be Elvis’s background singers, appearing with him at his four shows at Madison Square Garden in June 1972, as well as during his five-week residency in Las Vegas later that summer.
Mr. Sterban also sang on major recordings by Elvis like “Burning Love,” a No. 2 pop hit in 1972, and “Always on My Mind.”
In October 1972, seizing the chance to be part of a headlining act of his own, Mr. Sterban accepted an invitation to join the Oak Ridge Boys, replacing bass singer Noel Fox.
The newly reconstituted quartet initially struggled to make it in the country market. Buoyed, though, by a stint as regulars in Johnny Cash’s touring revue, they finally broke through to a wider audience with “Y’all Come Back Saloon.” A Top 10 country single in 1977, the record inaugurated a decade-plus string of hits that paved the way for sold-out concert tours, regular appearances on late-night television shows and five Grammy Awards.
The Oak Ridge Boys were inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame in 2000 and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015.
An avid sports fan, Mr. Sterban was for years a part owner of — and occasional color commentator for — the Nashville Sounds baseball team, the Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. He also did color commentary for Vanderbilt University’s men’s baseball team.
In addition to his sons from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, Mr. Sterban is survived by his second wife, Donna (Summers) Sterban; their daughters, Tori and Lauren; and several grandchildren.
Their early struggles to find their stylistic equilibrium notwithstanding, the Oak Ridge Boys nevertheless continued to push the boundaries of country music decades after they found success with a more wide-ranging approach.
Maybe nowhere was this more evident than in their haunting 2009 rendition of the White Stripes’ 2003 single “Seven Nation Army.” Recorded with the producer Dave Cobb, whose clients include Jason Isbell and Lady Gaga, the collaboration has been likened to Mr. Cash’s partnership with the iconoclastic producer Rick Rubin.
“I think Dave took us down some roads we might not have traveled on our own,” Mr. Sterban was quoted as saying about the experience on the group’s website. “The music may be different, but he did not try to change us; he challenged us.”
