Well let me tell you of the story of a band named...The Kingston Trio

Favorites of my parents -- knew the Christmas album backwards and forwards growing up since they always broke it out around that time. And when I was home last weekend I noticed that they've got about four CDs of old KT stuff now, which was cool to see.

A stylized version of The Weavers, they were probably more responsible for bringing about the folk revival than any other group.

Dave Guard was the spiritual and intellectual rudder of the group and kept Bob Shane from putting everybody asleep and kept Nick Reynolds from dressing up in baby-doll-bonnet-clothes and wetting himself. That is, Shane was emboldened by Guard and Reynolds was like the show-off little brother. When Guard left, they tended to melt back into soft-serve. Sure, Stewart gave them "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", but friggin' Burl Ives coulda done that!

Another testament to Gaurd is his Whiskeyhill Singers album, which further galvanizes his irreverent approach to the material (another album-or-two from them would've been great).

Kingston Trio should be noted, along with Harry Belafonte, as the group that repopularized the Folk Revival after McCarthyism, which is saying something big. Tom Dooley was so huge in 1959 that even Ella Fitzgerald quoted the song in her version of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer.

But to me, the story worth telling within the popular folk revival lineage is The Weavers, the band that took the fall of McCarthyism. If I understand the story correctly, Pete Seeger took in Leadbelley, formed the Almanac Singers to perform union protests in the 40's, then fearful of being targeted by McCarthyists, he disbanded the edgy Almanac Singers in favor of crossing over by forming the poppy, whitewashed Weavers complete with production by Terry Gilkyson. They were so successful that songs such as Goodnight Irene, On Top of Old Smokey, and Wimoweh (later converted into The Lion Sleeps Tonight) are still part of our venacular.

Then they were exposed as communists and the folk revival was squelched for about 5 years.

he also showed his good taste in singers by hiring judy henske to sing with him!

you know Whiney all that "freak folk" getting exhumed by German labels and sold on FE and extolled by Devendra barely even counted as folk back then - shit went outta print 'cause nobody gave a rat's

Eppy nails it with the fun-to-sing-along-to point. The band seems to almost be inviting you on stage to join in, something rare even on records that consciously try to be all about that vibe.

As for my parents - my dad actually thought of himself as something of a folk appreciator, and I owe him bigtime for the Dave Van Ronk. Interestingly, it's my mother who cared about the Kingston Trio - along with Peter, Paul & Mary and Ian & Sylvia...

Yeah, that's true - The Smothers Bros. handled this pretty good.

Kingston Trio -- Dave Guard -vs- John Stewart

I was told there's a DVD biography on the Trio due out now if not already via Shout! Factory. I'm ordering this ASAP.

I have way too many thoughts on them to make into a single post. When I write the book on my thoughts, I'll post a link to it.

There's a notable exception: "Coplas" is awful, and it sours an otherwise perfect debut album.

"Coo Coo U", however, is possibly the band's greatest song, and this is full on weird latin-influenced reductionism in the form of a late 50s pop song.

Oh, and I suppose this thread is as good a place as any to share an idea a dorm hallmate and I cooked up many a year ago, as it doesn't look like it's going to happen on this end. Consider it a new piece of the folk canon. Anyway: Ramones-style adaptation of "MTA":

MTA did a job on me
Now I am like poor Charlie
Guess I'll have to pay a ton
To get back to downtown Boston

etc.

Chorus would be "Never return, never never return" delivered in a kind of "Ba ba ba ba, wanna be sedated" type of style.

Good luck!

Er, no it's not, Chris. It's more like calling yourself a blues fan when all when you have is a bunch of Shadows of Knight and Foghat records, which is kinda cool when you think about it (at least in the case of the Kingston Trio, who were great at least in huge part because they seemed pretty darn irreverent about their genre -- I don't really know the Weavers at all). Anyway, as Ned suggested up above, I'm a fan; I mention them a bunch of times in my second book, I think. An even bigger fan is Frank Kogan -- in fact, they were one of his first favorite bands, ever. He's written about them a lot.

Anyhow, Kingston Trio albums on my shelf include College Concert, From the Hungry I, Sold Out, Here We Go Again!, The Kingston Trio, String Along, and Sunny Side! (on the cover of which they look more like the Beach Boys than a folk trio). All good, though the earlier ones tend to be best. I also like the 2 Limeliters albums I've heard.

that's what's so great about that line! she doesn't WANT him off the train. but she's not cruel enough to let him die there. stone-cold classic.

Chorus would be "Never return, never never return" delivered in a kind of "Ba ba ba ba, wanna be sedated" type of style.

done already, sort of. the dropkicks murphys recorded their own version of it called "skinhead on the mta"

did he ever return?
no he'll never return
and his fate is still unknown
OI OI OI
and he'll ride forever 'neath the streets of boston
he's the skinhead who'll never return

etc etc.

xpost Well, now that "Coo Coo U" is downloaded I know what's next in the queue...thanks Emily B!

The meat of the CD is nothing revelatory to those of you who know the basic hits and more. It's very much like something that would run on PBS. A few great slices of footage you may not have seen elsewhere, and some insight as to how the history of the developed, why certain changes occurred, etc. but without the depth... probably just to be tasteful, since this is (at long last) the first major Kingston Trio DVD released. Perhaps later ones will be more revealing and go into things like exactly why David Guard left, everything he's done while the Trio continued with John Stewart, etc.
But it's fun enough. This part is perfect for people who've always been curious about the Kingstron Trio but never took anything but something just shy of a cursory glance into their music and story.

The real treats are in the extended bonus coverage. For fans, this is 85% of the real deal here... and mostly for the incidental footage related to the Kingston trio. I may be alone here, but I had no idea there was a 50s TV show called "Juke Box Jury" starring Peter Potter, where the premise of the show was to listen to a song, and people would rate it a "Hit" or "Not a hit" and explain why -- something that could exist but only in a more visual, fashionable form in the post-post-MTV generation. Anyway, this was part of the stories about certain songs feature, which is great great insight. Most rewarding was a look at Frank Werber, who was, defacto, the fourth member of the Trio in that he was the machine behind them. He paved the ground for how professional bands would prosper.. i.e. making sure the band knows how to deal with less appreciate crowds, drilling them on maneuvers, how to move about, and still maintain a good live sound, and so so many other things. He only appears as voice snippets here. I wonder what happened to the guy. There should be a DVD on Frank Werber's life story alone.. apparently, he moved to San Francisco via trying to escape The Netherlands because of the rising Nazi influence in Europe at the time in the early 40s.

There's also a feature on Kingstro Trio fanatics.. there are still bands today in Japan who are Kingston Trio clones.. they don't know a word of English, but learn the Trio songs and memorize the lyrics phonetically. There's a Kingston Trio specialty record store in Japan called "Back In Town". I can't seem to search for them online.. but.. wow. I bet you that these collectors and fans featured in this segment are going to eventually end up here via googling. Last but not least: TRIO FANTASY CAMP! A yearly thing in Scottsdale AZ where John Strwart, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynold partake in where people try to hone their musical skills by trying to emulate the Kingston Trio. just.. wow.

The interview segments with John Stewart are great. The guy is just fried, but in the best way possible. Also major props for John Reynolds, Nick Reynolds's son, who does a great job in the segments as well. One of the Smothers brothers, and Al Jardine are great in here too.

and Phyllis Diller is alive! (ha-HAAAAAA) And she's, uh, doing far better today than I expected, based on the interview footage.

they cut the definitive versions of "MTA," "Tom Dooley," "Old Joe Clark," "The Tijuana Jail," and "A Worried Man" at least

is simply insane.

There was an interview segment with some folk folks (sorry) where they talked about how the appeal of the Trio was more admiration as opposed to adoration, the latter of which applied more for Elvis and the Beatles.. they were well times in that they snuck in right in between Elvis's going to the army and their prime year ending shortly before the Beatles exploded in the U.S. (sure, they continued on until 1967, when the first continuous lineup broke up.)

Another thing that gnaws at me is the lack of insight into Dave Guard. They touch upon him in the DVD definitely, but his weird sense of humor, and him basically raising for pedestal for funny and fucked-up witty banter in between songs is unmeasured.. I wanted to know more about what he proposed in 1961 that cause the Trio to tell him where to go, proverbially, and what his immediate post-Kingston Trio career was like. Apparently, even during the 1981 reunion show on PBS, Bob Shane hinted that he and David still had differences to iron out that weren't ironed out yet... they finally fully made up but right before Guard got sick and died in the late 80s. I mean, Bob and Dave grew up with each other in Hawaii.. the Lennon/McCartney bad blood is well documented and is relatively childish in retrospect.. but at least some bad blood between Guard and Shane for 30 years? What the hell!

Nick Reynolds RIP:

Reynolds typically handled the middle part of the trio's scintillating three-part harmonies, sometimes adding congas and other percussion accents. Although the group's music generally shied away from the politicized content of such forbears as Woody Guthrie and the Weavers, its commercial breakthrough in the late-'50s represented a clean-cut alternative to the sexualized rock 'n' roll of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and others that had American teens in its grip. And it helped set the stage for such upcoming folk-rooted protest singers as Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary.

"It really started with the Weavers, in the early '50s," Reynolds said in a 2006 interview speaking of the group that included Pete Seeger. "We were big fans of theirs, but they got blacklisted in the McCarthy era. Their music was controversial. Suddenly, they couldn't get any airplay; they couldn't get booked into the big hotels, nothin'.

"We played their kind of music when we were first performing in colleges. But when we formed the trio ... we had to sit down and make a decision: Are we going to remain apolitical with our music? Or are we going to slit our throats and get blacklisted for doing protest music? We decided we'd like to stay in this business for a while. And we got criticized a lot for that. ... If Bob Dylan or Joan Baez had come out at that time, they'd have been dead in the water. But four or five years later, [their music] became commercially viable."

Reading through that I see he was a Coronado High School grad like myself -- that makes sense because I remember hearing that one of them still lived in San Diego and made occasional appearances at Coronado's Sunday afternoon concert series.

As for critical stuff, Greil Marcus has repped for these guys a few times.

very sad but not surprising if you saw Nick in the DVD. He was struggling then, as was John Stewart. My best to the Reynolds and belated best to the Stewarts

twenty years on, and it would seem my effort to get the Kingston Trio back on the cultural map was not successful. if they're not yet utterly forgotten, they're surely on their way, and i don't see the avenue through which they'd plausibly experience a revival. even a bizarre unpredictable fad like the 90s swing thing seems unlikely to focus on the pre-Dylan mainstream folkie thing... if such a fad is even possible in today's media landscape. alas!

Is there a particular place to start with them you recommend? Just a greatest hits collection, maybe?

Or a particular live album?

Okay, I just put on a live album at random.

Live at Newport, 1959. Pretty good so far.

Also skimmed the thread and the Wikipedia article to get up to speed.

Wikipedia even has a section called "21-st century perspectives"

Heh, lol, at comedy false start of "Bird Dog."

“At the Hungry I” was the live album staple for my dad. I enjoy them fwiw

Glad to see you taking the swing, JR! I came up via their old 60s greatest hits, and eventually settled on the three-disc comp The Folk Era as the exact right amount of them that I needed.

Confession/Trade Secret/Pro Tip: I kind of tend to need a new drug of sorts each December to get through the cage match/sensory deprivation & overstimulation of the holiday season. One year during the omega variant wave it was electronic music, this season it's so far shaping up to be the KT plus inspirations from some of the jazz threads.

Maybe also throw Judy Garland into the mix.

I was an apartment kid in the early 70s in an extremely liberal hood and I tasted all the flavors of political downerism by the time I was four, so what do I care? They kind of rock. I have also dug the Tarriers and the Springfields lately, also some Irish/Scottish stuff.

JR: dig it!