The Kingston Trio

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The Kingston Trio's original lineup: Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds
The Kingston Trio's original lineup: Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds

The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to early 1960s.

Contents

[edit] Formation and early success

The Kingston Trio was formed in 1957 in the Palo Alto, California, area by Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds, who were just out of college. Greatly influenced by The Weavers,[citation needed] the calypso sounds of Harry Belafonte,[citation needed] and other folk artists such as the Gateway Singers and the Tarriers,[citation needed], they were discovered playing at a Menlo College-area club, the Cracked Pot, by Frank Werber, a publicist then working at San Francisco's hungry i nightclub. He became their manager, and secured them a one-shot recording contract with Capitol Records. Shane would later tell concert audiences[citation needed] that the group considered itself at first to be primarily a calypso group, and therefore named itself after the capital of Jamaica.

The group's first hit was a catchy rendition of a traditional folk song, "Tom Dooley", based upon the life of the tragic figure, Tom Dula; it earned a gold record in 1958. It was so popular that it entered popular culture as a catchphrase: Ella Fitzgerald, for example, parodies it during her recorded version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". It won the trio the first Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance, at the awards inaugural ceremony in 1959. The next year, the group won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for the album The Kingston Trio at Large.

At one point in the early 1960s The Kingston Trio had four albums at the same time among the Top 10 selling albums, a record unmatched for nearly 40 years. In spite of this, they had a relatively small number of hit singles.

The group's music was simple and accessible, with much use of tight vocal harmony, signature riffs (often played on the banjo), and repetitive choruses. Capitol producer Voyle Gilmore[1] enhanced their vocal sound with reverb and the relatively new process of doubletracking, in which the performers sang along with their own prerecorded part to produce a stronger sound than with a single voice, in part due to a natural gap of a fraction of a second between the original recording and the overdubbed part. At first, pairs of tape recorders were used, then later multitrack recording machines, to produce the effect.

Several of the group's most popular songs were humorous numbers, such as "Tijuana Jail", the tale of an ill-fated trip to Mexico, and "M.T.A.", the saga of a man who "never returned" from the Boston subway system. A concert favorite[citation needed] was the darkly humorous "Merry Minuet", a tuneful meditation on the prospect of nuclear war.

[edit] The '60s and later

The Kingston Trio's second troupe after Guard's departure: John Stewart, Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane
The Kingston Trio's second troupe after Guard's departure: John Stewart, Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane

Guard left the band in 1961 as part of a disagreement over its musical direction and with the way their publishing earnings were being handled.[2] He formed the group Whiskey Hill Singers, and was replaced by John Stewart, who led the group through several more years of popularity until the arrival of The Beatles and British invasion rock bands pushed them from the charts. Guard died of lymphatic cancer in 1991, and Stewart of a massive stroke (or possibly aneurysm) in 2008, leaving Reynolds and Shane as the two surviving original (and heyday) members.

The Trio (in its original incarnations) disbanded after a final performance at the hungry i on June 17, 1967 (skipping an encore to attend the nearby Monterey Pop Festival). Shane, the lone member to resist the breakup, started a new group, aptly named The New Kingston Trio in 1969 with Jim Connor and Pat Horine. He eventually reached a contractual agreement with his former partners, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber, to secure and license once again the original name, The Kingston Trio, in 1976.(Blake et al. 1986.) Shane continues to have rights to the name as of 2008.

Stewart, who wrote the Monkees hit "Daydream Believer" and recorded nearly four dozen solo albums, and scored a Top 10 hit single of his own in 1979 with "Gold", died on January 19, 2008 of a brain aneurysm at a San Diego, California hospital.[3]

By 1973 the trio was Shane, Roger Gambill, and Bill Zorn. Zorn left in 1976, and was replaced by George Grove.[4] Bob Haworth, a member of The Brothers Four from 1970 to 1985, sang with the Trio from 1985 until 1988, filling in for Gambill, who was hospitalized,[citation needed] and eventually replaced him when Gambill died that year. In 1988, Nick Reynolds, one of the original three members, returned, replacing Bob Haworth. Reynolds retired in 1999, and Haworth returned to the Trio through 2005.[5]

In 2005, Shane retired from the group due to health problems.[6] He was replaced by the returning Bill Zorn, leaving The Limeliters, who he'd been a member of in the 1990s. Also coming from the Limeliters was Rick Dougherty, who replaced Haworth, who'd also left the group.

As of 2006, The Kingston Trio consists of George Grove, Zorn, and Dougherty.

[edit] "Scotch and Soda"

The Kingston Trio in 2003: George Grove, Bob Shane, Bobby Haworth (bassist Paul Gabrielson).
The Kingston Trio in 2003: George Grove, Bob Shane, Bobby Haworth (bassist Paul Gabrielson).

Through the years, the most requested song for The Kingston Trio was "Scotch and Soda", which was always performed as a solo number by Shane. The trio discovered this song through Tom Seaver's parents, who had first heard it when on their honeymoon. One member of the trio was dating Seaver's older sister at that time, and heard the song on a visit to the Seaver home. Although it is credited to Dave Guard, the trio never did discover the real songwriter's name, though they searched for years.[[1]]

Since Shane's retirement, the song is only rarely performed live,[citation needed] and sometimes as a solo by one of the current members and at others in an audience sing-along.[citation needed]


[edit] Discography and Videography

Capitol Records Releases: Albums

...from the Hungry i, 1959
...from the Hungry i, 1959
At Large, 1959
At Large, 1959
Stay Awhile, 1965
Stay Awhile, 1965
An Evening With The Kingston Trio, 1992
An Evening With The Kingston Trio, 1992
Snapshot, 2006
Snapshot, 2006
Turning Like Forever, 2008
Turning Like Forever, 2008

Capitol Records also released vinyl albums of The Best of the Kingston Trio, Vols I, II, and III between 1961 and 1966, a "duophonic" reissue of cuts from the first two albums named The Kingston Trio Encores in 1961, and a number of CD compilations and re-issues in the 1980s and 1990s.

Decca Records Releases: Albums

  • Nick Bob John 1964
  • Stay Awhile 1965
  • Somethin' Else 1965
  • Children of the Morning 1966

Tetragrammaton Records Release: Album

  • Once Upon a Time (double album) 1969

Longines Symphonette Release: Album

  • The World Needs A Melody 1973

GZS Productions Tape/CD Release

  • Live At The Crazy Horse 1976

Nautilus Records Release: Album

Xerxes Records Releases: Albums

  • 25 Years Non-Stop 1982
  • Looking For The Sunshine 1983

Folk Era/Rediscover Records Releases: Albums/CDs

  • Rediscover The Kingston Trio 1985
  • Hidden Treasures 1987
  • Everybody's Talking 1989
  • An Evening With The Kingston Trio 1992
  • The New Kingston Trio: The Lost Masters 1969-1972 1997
  • Snapshot 2006

Vanguard Records Release: CD

  • The Kingston Trio Live At Newport 1994

Silverwolf Records Release: Original CD

  • Live At The Crazy Horse 1995

Collector's Choice Music Releases: Original CDs

  • The Lost 1967 Album 2007
  • The Final Concert 2007
  • Once Upon A Time CD reissue 2007
  • Twice Upon A Time 2007
  • Turning Like Forever 2008

Shout Factory Release: CD

  • The Essential Kingston Trio 2006

Kingston Trio Productions Release: CD

  • Still Goin' Places 2005
  • The First Fifty Years 2007

There are in addition literally scores of vinyl, tape, and CD compilations and reissues by a multitude of companies in the U.S., Germany, Japan, and elsewhere.

Video Releases

  • The Kingston Trio and Friends Reunion (WhiteStar Video, 1982)
  • An Evening With The Kingston Trio (Rhino Video, 1989)
  • The Kingston Trio 45th Anniversary Tribute Concert (EDI, 2002)
  • Wherever We May Go (Shout Factory, 2006)
  • The Kingston Trio: Fifty Years Of Having Fun (EDI, 2006)
  • Live At The Yuma (Kingston Trio Productions, 2007)
  • Young Men In A Hurry [TV Series Pilot] (Paramount, 2007)

Top 40 Hits In Chronological Order:

Other well-known songs frequently performed by The Kingston Trio:

 This section does not cite any references or sources. (January 2008)
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[edit] Awards and recognition

The Kingston Trio was inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2000.

The Kingston Trio won a Grammy for "Best Country And Western Performance" in 1959 for the single of "Tom Dooley". At the time, no "Folk" category existed. When a "Best Performance - Folk" category was initiated in 1960, the Trio won its second Grammy (the first awarded in this category) for its album The Kingston Trio At Large.

The Trio is number one on C. Montgomery Burns' secret enemy list on The Simpsons.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interviews with Voyle Gilmore, Trio's producer 1957-1964
  2. ^ Ritchie Unterberger in liner notes for Dave Guard & The Whiskey Hill Singers
  3. ^ "John Stewart, Who Wrote Monkees Hit, Dies at 68", Associated Press, via The New York Times, January 21, 2008
  4. ^ Corporate Entertainment - The Kingston Trio booking information for your next event!
  5. ^ The Kingston Trio... The Players 1
  6. ^ The Kingston Trio... The Players 1

[edit] External links