Gonna Take a Lot of River
1988 single by The Oak Ridge Boys

"Gonna Take a Lot of River", with the full name "Gonna Take a Lot of River (Mississippi, Monongahela, Ohio)", is a song written by John Kurhajetz and Mark Henley, and recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys. It was released in July 1988 as the lead single from Monongahela.
In October 1988, the song hit number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. "Gonna Take a Lot of River" was the first song to feature Steve Sanders, who succeeded William Lee Golden in the group's lineup.
In 2011, the group rerecorded the song with a new arrangement and Joe Bonsall on lead vocals for It's Only Natural.
The public source identifies “Gonna Take a Lot of River” as 1988 single by The Oak Ridge Boys. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gonna, Take and River.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5582026. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gonna Take a Lot of River” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.