From the “Comes in Threes” Department…

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Wow, have I taken a “celebrity music” beating in the last 24 hours. The most recent announcement came a little while ago, when the Oak Ridge Boys announced the death of bass singer Richard Sterban. Certainly not a “shock,” given that he’d been battling pancreatic cancer, but it still hurts. Sterban was the guy you love or hate, depending on your opinion of the song “Elvira.” He’s the “oom boppa oom boppa mow-mow” guy in that fun but grossly overplayed song. His passing at the age of 83 leaves two members from the “country golden era” of the group: Duane Allen and William Lee Golden. The Oak Ridge Boys name goes back to 1943 as a gospel quartet, so it’s not correct to call them “original members.” Yes, they’ve been members for 50-plus years, but when a group is almost 85 years old, those are still newcomers. The other two deaths that hurt so bad are names you’ve probably never heard or don’t remember. Richard Weitz, the founder of Bear Family Records, died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 81. He had an idea: get old singers’ complete discographies, get the finest writers available for the biographies, and release them in elaborate box sets. Trust me when I say I would have had my house paid off ten years sooner if it hadn’t been for Bear Family box sets…and I wouldn’t change a thing to have all that wonderful music. Then there’s Skip Hinnant. Hinnant’s death was announced yesterday, although he died November 8 at the age of 86. I had a crush on him when I was a teenager. He was on the cast of the learn-to-read PBS series The Electric Company, playing, among his most memorable characters, Fargo North, Decoder (say it fast ) and “The Boy” in the “soap opera” “Love of Chair” (which always ended with a voiceover saying, “And…what about Naomi?” ). Despite the family-friendly work (he was also Schroeder in the play You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown), he ALSO voiced the naughty Fritz the Cat in animated X-rated movies in the 70s. Speaking of the obits, my hand feels good enough to let me hopefully get the September music obits up in the next day or so. Meanwhile, say a fond farewell to these three. To spare you from “Elvira,” because I know that’s a lightning rod of a song, here’s the Oaks Ridge Boys doing a Rodney Crowell song, “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight.”