Talk:Dave Guard

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[edit] "Wikify" notice?

Okay, so tell me what you'd like to see done? I know this article is "live", but please note that this article is essentially an on-going rewrite of the original stub that was here. My work is based on personal knowledge of Dave Guard -- I went to school with him at Punahou, was on the football and track teams with him. And also from many digging through many, many web pages scattered here, there, and everywhere over the Internet. I've also got a related article that's in development (see "Whiskeyhill Singers") and is also "live" (it started out a stub, though), so you might want to take a look at that, although it's an article about one of Dave Guard's musical groups, and is intended to be a related but separate article.  I'd appreciate any comments about that article as well.

I also have another biographical article I'm writing that's "live" (see "W.A.N.T."). Comments on that article would also be appreciated. It's being developed from cassette tapes, videotape, and a 250-page autobiography by Busemeyer that I've been given by his family. Comments on that will also be appreciated.

Then finally, I've got an academic article I'm writing (on my Talk page) about the tip wage credit. That one's almost, but not quite ready to go to review before I put it up live.

Thanks/regards,

Ken

K. Kellogg-Smith 21:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need help about "Wikifying".

Someone tacked a "Wikify" notice on this article without explaining why ... and without the simple courtesy of signing their name (so I can go to their talk page). I can remove the tag easily enough, but removing it on the page might not remove it from the page/article "needs Wikifying" lists. Any help? K. Kellogg-Smith 01:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikify may be able to help. It notes that:

"An article needs Wikification if it:

  • Has no specific lead paragraph and / or has no sections headings.
  • Has no internal linking (wiki-links).
  • Has no Infobox or templating and may require it."

And notes that the process of Wikification entails:

  • Make links to other articles by putting "[[" and "]]" on either side of relevant words.
  • Format the lead (first section / opening paragraph).
  • Arrange section headers as described at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.
  • Add the class="wikitable" tag to plain html tables.
  • Add an Infobox if applicable.

The page is now wikified! However, please remember to:

  • Remove the {{wikify}} tag. That will remove it from the list.
  • Enhance your edit summary. You can encourage others to help with the wikification backlog by using something like the following as your edit summary when you save your changes:
Wikified as part of the [[WP:WWF|Wikification wikiproject]]!

Hope that helps! If you need more help, just restore the {{helpme}} template, or leave me a note on my talk page :) --YbborTalkSurvey! 02:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schoen/Shane?

I wonder why the article uses Bob Shane's birth name rather than his performing name? Most people will expect the latter (and there's already a Wiki article about him under "Bob Shane"). If Shane was still going by Schoen in quartet days, then maybe the thing to do is to revise the sentence to indicate that he later changed the spelling of his name to the stage version.

On a perhaps-related matter--your comment above indicates that much of your knowledge of Guard is based on personal acquaintacnce. This is going to make problems eventually, since most Wiki editors will see this information as original research (OR) and tag it as such. (I've encountered this issue with several topics on which I have personal knowledge or not-yet-published original research.) The main guideline for this is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOR. It often feels counter-intuitive, especially when there are errors or distortions in the public record or received wisdom on a topic, but we're stuck with it in Wikipedia. The challenge in constructing an entry is to be able to justify any given point by referring to a reliable source. It can get to be a bit of a game, but I suppose this is a leisure activity for most of us. (And if you're a contemporary and classmate of Dave Guard, you might have some information about the Cultural Renaissance period I'd like to hear about for a book I'm working on.) RLetson 17:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some Talking Points

Commendations for your ongoing work on developing a reliable article on this seminal but under appreciated figure in American music history. I have some comments of both a general and specific nature which I would offer before going in and doing an edit by myself

a) The section on "Military Service" is completely out of place because first, Guard had none, and second, your use of the word "presumably" for his draft registration. This section reflects a topic that may be of interest to the writer (classmates?) but is of no consequence whatsoever in terms of what makes Guard of interest to a reader of an encyclopedia.

b) The section on the Kingston Trio reflects largely Guard's point of view, both in terms of the formation of the group and his split from them. There is no question that the formation of the group originates with Guard and his various configurations, but the chronology and personnel changes aren't completely accurate. Reynolds, for instance, was a member both of DG and the Calypsonians and was the fourth member of the Kingston Quartet with Guard, Bogue, and Gannon (who eventually became the group's road manager). An excellent print source for this is Blake, Rubeck, and Shaw, The Kingston Trio On Record (Kingston Korner, Inc, 1986), which includes both a picture on p. 18 dated 1957 with the aforementioned quartet in striped shirts and with Reynolds on bongos as well as an extensive interview with Guard for the book by Elizabeth Wilson.

c) Werber approached Guard AND Reynolds at Menlo Park's Cracked Pot beer garden where DG and the Calypsonians were playing. He suggested that three would be easier to get jobs for than four, and neither Guard nor Reynolds was happy with Gannon's musical contributions to the group. But Gannon and Bogue were engaged (and did marry), and getting rid of one meant getting rid of the other. Guard had met Reynolds through Shane (yes, the stage name), and both recognized the superior quality of Shane's voice (and rhythm guitar playing - Guard acknowledges that he learned guitar chord formations and basic strums from Shane in the cited interview). The two got rid of Gannon, Bogue went with him, and Shane returned from Hawaii where he had both been working in his father's sporting goods business and doing what he has termed an Elvis impersonation act (as well as songs by the Weavers, Harry Belafonte, and Hank Williams, among others) at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

Confirmation for all of the above is again in KTOR, in both the Guard interview and an extensive interview with Frank Werber (who died recently just a few days after the ascribed date of the first assembling of Guard, Reynolds and Shane, on May 29, 1957).

d) Much more could be said about Guard's break from the Trio, and Shane and Reynolds have a somewhat different perspective (not surprisingly), which I know from both personal experience with them and citably from public interviews, notably Shane's comments in the 2006 documentary for PBS Wherever We May Go (Prod. Paul Surratt/JoAnn Young: Shout Factory, 2006).

e) There seems to be an internal inconsistency. The date for the break-up of The Whiskeyhill Singers is first listed as 1962 (correct date) but two paragraphs later as 1961.

f) "In 1967 Guard sold his 24% interest in the Kingston Trio to Shane, giving Shane the right to call his group The Kingston Trio. " This line is an inaccurate summary and conclusion. Shane, Reynolds, and Werber agreed to a buy-out price of $300,000 for his interest in the KT, to be paid over a number of years. After the troupe with John Stewart disbanded in 1967, Shane needed to secure the permission of Reynolds and Werber to use the name "New Kingston Trio" from 1969-1976. Guard was financially completely out of the picture by this time and had no say in this decision. Shane bought the name outright from Werber and Reynolds in 1976 and has called all subsequent configurations of the group "The Kingston Trio."

Documentation for the above exists in large part from a 1981 article in the New York Times following a PBS-sponsored reunion concert that included the touring KT of the time as well as the Shane, Reynolds, Stewart configuration and (for the first time in 20 years) the Guard, Shane and Reynolds configuration. This article should be available online again soon when the "Kingston Trio Liner Notes" (a fan site but with extensive uploaded research material, including hundreds of articles written about the Trio) co,mes back on line.

g) "The Mystery Years" makes it seem as if Guard was underground. His whereabouts and activities during this time are quite well-known, at least to KT fans. Aside from the Reunion concert, Guard performed frequently as a solo, touring over the years with the Modern Folk Quartet. He put out a solo album Up and In in 1988. He was deeply involved with the guru Muktananda.

h) Guard's bouts with cancer started long before New Hampshire. He was recovering from cancer related shoulder surgery at the time of the 1981 reunion concert. Allusion to this is made in KTOR, but there are more extensive discussions elsewhere, which I'll find and add to this.

A fine effort so far, but with room for addition/improvement. Sensei48 18:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Sensei48

And a further addition - the evolution of the Kingston Trio musically is not as presented here. First , the KT repertoire emerged not primarily from Reynolds, as implied, but from all three. Any of the three (and manager Werber) could and did suggest songs for recording and/or performance. Initially, all three had to agree on a song or it was not accepted into the repertoire. Guard did the bulk of the arranging, more so as time went on during the first four years. He composed/wrote literally no songs whatsoever that were recorded by the KT. He was assigned sole copyright initially to two songs on the first eponymous album: "Tom Dooley and "Scotch and Soda," two of the group's signature songs. "Tom Dooley" was listed as "Traditional - Arranged By Dave Guard" when in fact the Trio was using (likely unbeknownst to them at the time) the unique arrangement of a North Carolina ballad by Frank Warner and John A. and Alan Lomax, who subsequently sued Guard, won, and were awarded copyright and cash. "Scotch and Soda" was taught to Guard and Shane by the parents of a date of Guard's ; they had heard it from an anonymous piano player in a hotel in Phoenix while on their honeymoon in the 1930s. Guard put his name on the song, expecting as he always alleged that the true composer would come forward and claim credit and royalties. This never happened, and "Scotch and Soda" (which was a solo for Shane and which both Shane and Reynolds have frequently said is the single most requested song from the KT song book) remains copyrighted under Guard's name, though it is common knowledge that he himself did not write it. Guard claimed CO-writing credit on a limited number of KT songs, especially with Texan Jane Bowers, who was said to resent sharing copyright with Guard because his contributions to the songs were minimal and the co-copyright was the price he exacted for the Trio to record the songs (which given the millions of albums the group sold in its first four years meant a substantial amount of money to any copyright holder whose songs appeared on their albums). This also led to a practice that heightened the tension between Guard and the Trio and traditional folk performers. On the first few albums, the KT would list traditional folk songs that they recorded as "Traditional - Arranged By Dave Guard" or "Traditional - Arranged Guard, Shane Reynolds." The songs were almost invariably in the public domain, and the controversy arose when Trio members made minimal changes to someone else's arrangement (often the Weavers) and claimed it as their own or when they took a familiar melody and appended their own words, claiming authorship as either "Guard, Shane,Reynolds" or under the humorous pen name "Jack Splittard" (much as the Weavers had copyrighted public domain material under the pseudonym "Paul Campbell").

Substantiation for these points can be found in the same sources quoted above - The Kingston Trio On Record, the PBS documentary Wherever We May Go, the New York Times article on the 1981 Reunion concert, the wire service obituary for Jane Bowers, and more that I will list as they become available.

  Everyone should be very careful concerning authorship and copyright for any material associated with the Kingston Trio, and perhaps other "folk" artists of that era.  For instance, the authorship for the song "You're Gonna Miss Me" ( on the "Goin' Places LP) is attributed to "Seeger, Paley, Cohen, Guard".  But the same song was recorded by Charlie Poole in New York City on September 18, 1926, entitled "Leaving Home" for Columbia Records.  This can be verified by reading the liner notes to "Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers", JSP Records # 7734A, (London, U.K.; 2004) and listening to the piece.  It could scarcely be said to have even been re-arranged, and the words, if not identical, are hardly different.  The Trio's feud with Jean Ritchie over the authorship of "Shady Grove", along with other facts regarding the Kingston Trio, is contained in Scott Weissman's book "Whose Side Are You On?", which was released in 2007.  It seems lots of folks were playing fast and loose with copyright and authorship in the early days of folk music, along with rock music as well.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel Sparkman (talk • contribs) 14:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

More to come. Sensei48 08:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Sensei48