This installment of Conversations finds us speaking with Duane Allen.
Duane is no stranger to gospel music. He is a classically-trained vocalist, accomplished songwriter, respected business man, and patriarch to a very musical family. Oh yeah, he’s also a 47-year member of one of the most well-respected musical acts in both country and gospel music, The Oak Ridge Boys.
When the Conversations feature was first conceived for Musicscribe, I knew that the very first person I wanted to talk to was Duane. I have always appreciated his willingness to discuss nearly any topic with openness and honesty. Even at 70 years old, he remains very active in touring, running the business aspect of the group, and also taking the time to interact with fans via social media.
I want to thank “the Ace” (as he’s known within the group and among fans) for taking the time for this interview.
KYLE BOREING: As the 1970′s dawned, and The Oak Ridge Boys were among the top gospel acts, gospel music was going through some major changes. You seemed to embrace these changes, rather than fight them. What do you think were among the biggest changes that you witnessed during this time?
DUANE ALLEN: In the ‘70′s, the Oaks were riding high on the success of “Jesus Is Coming Soon.” We were having a great run of success. I embraced the message of that song, as I embraced the messages in all of our songs prior to that. I saw the top level of gospel music at that point, however, I also saw the top level of jealousies beginning to raise their ugly heads, too. We were totally in favor of growing gospel music. As we got stronger and stronger, we were put into another grouping of people who did not like what we were doing, how we were growing, or how we looked. This started in the early 70′s and grew stronger each year until it eventually ran us off from the gospel music business.
However, do you would like to know “in what direction” The Oak Ridge Boys wanted to “grow” gospel music? Then, listen to Light, and in that album you will find your answer. We worked all across Canada, practicing every day, then down the west coast, where we found out that all of our California dates had been canceled. So, we asked Nelson Parkinson to book us at the last minute in as many churches as he could. The dates were appreciated by the Oaks, but they were not very good dates, money-wise. Only one of the week of church fill-in dates was good. I remember well, because I decided that I would wear the same shirt until we finally had a good date. I wore it for a week, and it was ready to stand in the corner by itself. On the last day, we had a good date, and I wore a clean shirt…..
We were rehearsing every day, and on the week before we recorded Light, we were rehearsing every day with our band. We had some new songs,that show where we wanted to take gospel music. Andre Crouche had given us some of his new songs, and we had an album full of great songs, all practiced, and ready to be recorded. We got a room in the world famous Whitney Recording Complex, and for five days, we fine-tuned all of the songs with our band in a rehearsal room. We were ready. Then came the best part, recording at Whitney, where so many huge hit records were cut…..Whitney Studio is built around the largest pipe organ in any recording studio, and we loved having that organ on our Light album.
We added two musicians from LA, and with our four musicians we recorded my dream album in gospel music – Light. That album was recorded with our band, and that is how I always wanted to record. It won either four or five Doves, so that album shows where I wanted our music to go….but, that just made it harder for us to grow because the “holier than thou” crowd that wanted to take the business in another direction was just more critical of everything we were doing. The people loved us, but the “self-righteous” people in the business world did not like us not adhering to their direction. So, the struggle for doing our kind of gospel music began in the early 70′s.
We rode the popularity of “Jesus Is Coming Soon” and followed it with two more major gospel hits, “I Know”, and “King Jesus”. Both of these songs were huge hits on radio and for us, but only made the jealousies, and trashing from the other element of the business get more and more intense. We wound up our gospel music career with 35 top charted singles on the Singing News magazine charts. I will always be grateful to those who supported our gospel career.
I have always looked at gospel music business as entertainment, but there was this element that was determined to turn it into what they perceived it to be, and if we did not do it the way they wanted it done, we got trashed, criticized, and eventually black-balled from the gospel music business. When we were black-balled, we eventually got the message. We left the gospel music business because the gospel music promoters quit booking us. When we left, we never looked back at the business of gospel music.
KYLE: Was your transition to country music an over-night decision, so to speak, or was it something that was a long-time in progress? Was there ever a time where you said, “Wait, let’s give gospel music one more shot”?
DUANE: The transition started when we had so much success with trying to “grow” gospel music that the criticism and trashing just grew and grew more and more intense. The promoters stopped booking us, so we had to book most of our dates on our own, and many of the promoters we used were not experienced, so most of those dates were not great, just survival dates. The change started for us after we had released several songs as singles that we felt were good enough to be played on country radio…but, the country DJ’s did not take us seriously, until we cut a country song, “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” and an entire album of “country” songs. They took us seriously then, and for almost two decades, we enjoyed country music hits, with over 50 charted singles in 5 different decades, according to Billboard magazine.
We never turned our back on gospel music – in fact, you can find gospel songs on almost all of our country albums – but, we did leave gospel music “business” because they black-balled our group. We got the message and we went to country music, where we were welcomed with open arms. I never looked back. I still haven’t. We don’t do business with the gospel music “business”, but, I have always loved gospel music…..that part never changed.
When our country contracts were up [in the late 1990’s], the first person I called was Bill Gaither’s company, Spring Hill. I wanted to record a gospel music album, and that was around 2000. We were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame that year, [and] lots of the older people who had trashed us were no longer living or in charge, so we were finally treated with respect, and we will always be grateful for that. We have never “returned to gospel music;” we never left gospel music. We left the gospel music business because they rejected the direction we were going. We never quit singing gospel music; we just quit doing business with those who stopped doing business with us. We had to leave the gospel music business because we had to make a living to support our group, our families, our band & their families, our staff & their families, and our crew & their families. We found a welcome mat for The Oak Ridge Boys from some of the most wonderful people on earth, in country music. They never told us we could “not” sing gospel music, and we never did “quit” singing gospel music.
KYLE: You have stated on multiple occasions that you did not keep up with gospel music for a number of years. Once you started to “get back into it,” so to speak, did anything surprise you about gospel music after so many years of being out of the loop?
DUANE: I quit listening to gospel music because I had to get our career on track in country music, and some of the gospel music people were so nasty to us that I did not want to let anything they said have any value, so I blocked the negative “holier than thou” people and let them live in their own negative world. I paid no attention to how they kept trashing us. It meant nothing to me. When some person would come up to me and say, “What do you think about what this gospel artist said about you????” I would just say, “It’s ‘not’ what I think about what they said; I don’t think about them at all. What they say about me has no value and I pay no attention to their words of hate.” So, I blocked them out of my mind, for over two decades. Many gospel artists came and went during that time, and I did not have a clue who they were. It made no difference to me because God was richly blessing The Oak Ridge Boys in country music, and we were making so much money that we were having to find places to spend it. I had over 10,000 cattle somewhere in Texas that I never saw, oil wells all over Indiana that I never saw. Our career was exploding, and I had no time for the negative people who were now trying to claim us and calling our office asking for free tickets and backstage passes. We honored every one of them, and I looked right into their eyes and told them it was good to have them at our show. I never once mentioned to them that I knew all about the negative garbage that they said about us. Instead, I did not treat them like they treated us – I treated them as special guests.
I called Gov. Jimmie Davis when we were trying to get a country hit. I asked him if he could give me any advice. He said, “Cut a country song.” I said, “We have been cutting songs for country radio but the DJ’s will not play them…” He said, “You are not cutting country songs! If you want country airplay, cut country songs.” I said, “But Gov. Davis, what will the gospel music people think about this? They are the only support we have…” He said, “When you have your first hit, they will be the first to claim you as friends” I said, “What if the song doesn’t hit?” He said, “You know how that feels now!” and he laughed really big. Well, he was 100% right. When our country songs started hitting, the “holier than thou” gospel people wanted to come to our shows and show us off to their friends. I just smiled, and comp’d all of their tickets. I knew exactly what some of them had said to us and to our backs, but you see, I had already forgiven them. I just smiled and welcomed them to our show.
KYLE: Likewise, was there anything you saw in today’s gospel music that made you say, “Yep, that’s exactly how I remember it,” even after so many years?
DUANE: I don’t need anyone to “shake” my memory bank. I experienced the good and bad of gospel music business, first hand. I just learned to deal with it in a spiritual way, something that was entirely different than the way some of these “holier than thou” gospel artists treated us. I learned my “forgiveness theory”. It is in three steps:
1. I asked God to forgive me for anything I may have ever done that caused the gospel music people to trash me.
2. I asked God to forgive those who trashed me, and to give me the ability to forgive them, too. Even if those gospel “holier than thou” people did not ask for or seek to be forgiven, I forgave them anyhow. I had already blocked them out, but it still hurt when I heard the awful things they were saying about us. I needed God to help me look at it in a completely different way. I studied the Bible and I realized that God had the answer. You may have heard someone say, “I forgive you, but, I’ll never forget”. Well, that is not what God told us to do. The Bible tells us that we “must forgive, and we ‘must’ forget, because that will make a place where love can bloom again. So, from that Bible teaching, I developed my forgiveness “three’s;” now, here is the final third step……
3. We forgive our self, and those who may have caused us harm, then God will “free” us of all of those negative things and give us “freedom” from them. So, I now live in total freedom.
There is no hurt left, there is no anger, and there is no desire to “get back or get even” with anyone. I harbor no ill will towards any human being in the gospel music business. I desire nothing that they may or may not possess. I live in freedom from their negative way of thinking. I want nothing that they have. It is not how I look at life or God’s teachings. God is my source of forgiveness, and it covers all those who trashed The Oak Ridge Boys, or me, personally.
KYLE: Looking at today’s gospel music industry, we have so many different styles (contemporary, pop, rock, rap, P&W, inspirational, southern gospel….). Do you feel like you played a part in the acceptance of these various styles?
DUANE: I don’t spend any time wondering how I will be accepted by anyone but God. I am very humbled and honored at how many of the young gospel artists come up to me and tell me that I am the reason that they are in gospel music.
I was humbled when Glen Payne told other people that I was the best singer in gospel music….that pretty much floored me! Recently, I was at the funeral of Jim Foglesong, the man who signed us to our first country contract, we sang “Farther Along” at his funeral at his family’s request. Just before the funeral began, our manager, Jim Halsey, called me over to the side of the church and told me that Mr. Foglesong told him that I was the best singer in country music. I almost fell over. Tears filled my eyes and I really had to fight back tears to sing for Mr. Foglesong….
So, I have had my share of applause. That always feels good. We have been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. I have been inducted into the Texas Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and just this week, I learned that I will be the new inductee into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in August of 2014……so, I have been honored many times, and I humbled to the core any time someone chooses to honor me, but, I am most humbled and honored every single day that God keeps blessing me with good health so that I can continue doing what I feel I was put on earth to do, and that is sing to people to bring some measure of happiness into their lives, if only for that period of time that they are listening to our music. I believe all gifts and all forms of music are gifts from God, so, it is up to us to use it as God, through His divine direction, leads us to do. I have never doubted that God is in control of The Oak Ridge Boys for our entire career. It took all of our experiences in gospel music business, good and bad, to pave the way to what God had in store for us. I give all the thanks to God, first, to my partners, to our families, and our employees. I also thank God for all of the fans who have supported us in all of our musical directions, and still do. We are very blessed men.
KYLE: Who among today’s gospel music artists would you say are among your favorite to listen to?
DUANE: The only kind of artist, no matter the field of music, that I enjoy listening to is the artist that “gets to me”. I have seen so many fake artists in my life that many of them just fall off me like water on a duck’s back. Many years ago, I realized that God gave me the gift of discernment, to go along with my musical gifts, and business ethics, so I can see a fake artist a mile off, and I can feel an artist that is “for real” as soon as I see or hear them. I give my ear to those who touch my heart. I listen to them, and I communicate with their gift. I have no time for the “pretend” artists. I have heard enough of that to last for the rest of my lifetime, and since they will probably not make heaven, I have heard enough of them for eternity…..HAHA!
