July 18, 1976

Detroit Free Press

But Will They Ever Return?

The Kingston Trio -- in Part -- Yearns to Sing Once More

By Tom DeLisle
Free Press Special Writer

It's 4 a.m. on a still California morning and the steady slap of waves can be heard down along the dark Malibu shoreline.

In a house on a bluff overlooking the vast ocean, Nick Reynolds and John Stewart quietly sip brandy and listen to a succession of recordings from the past 10 years -- the songs of Bob Dylan, James Taylor, John Denver, Tom Waits.

"Ah, but here's the one," says Stewart, putting a well-worn record on his turntable. The song is "The Times They Are A-Changin'," Dylan's 1964 prophecy of the social and political upheaval that America was to see.

Just as the mid-60s marked the beginning of a new and uncertain national period, they also brought the end of a seemingly gentler time. The change was evident in many fields. Including the music and entertainment worlds. For Reynolds and Stewart, It meant the end of a musical phenomenon swept them through their youth, the Kingston Trio.

In the six years of pre-Kennedy-assassination America, the Kingston Trio was the most popular singing group In the nation, and quite possibly the World.

From their 1958 hit "Tom Dooley" until their 1963 album "New Frontier," the Kingston Trio set a standard for campus dress collegiate humor and musical tastes. Guitar and banjo sales skyrocketed, and the group's mass popularization of folk music became a major force in the music industry.

However, in early 1964 the Beatles exploded, followed by the popularity of protest music and the eventual move toward acid rock. The Trio, caught in the past, persisted on a waning level until early 1987 when trio members Reynolds, Stewart and Bob Shane gladly gave up the ghost.

BUT NOW, nearly a decade later, on a dark morning slowly turning to Light over the Pacific, brandled conversation was turning to thoughts of renewal. Would the Kingston Trio ride again?

Reynolds picked absently on an eight-string mandolin and spoke about the possibility of a trio revival. Now 42, he has aged noticeably, over the past decade. Still very small and slim, his facial lines, thick mustache and thinning hair are beginning to threaten his choir-boy good looks.

"I don't know if it's a good idea," he said. "I have a lot of doubts about doing it."

Stewart. who rents his Malibu home from Erica Jong, has changed radically from the short-haired, Ivy-League-look. days of the Trio. Tall and thin, be dresses only in jerseys and Jeans, and his free-style long hair; looks as if it were styled With a cherry bomb.

"You can't so back'" Stewart said. "There's an energy flow that can never recaptured. To do a nostalgia album wouldn't make any sense. But to get in there and work together and have fun, that's what the trio was all about.

"That's what's tempting. And Ion needs to do It. Maybe that's why it might work."

AN ASSORTMENT of Promoters and record company people think It will. In late June, United Artists offered Reynolds, Stewart and Dave Guard a considerable advance to do an album that would test public response to a Kingston Trio revival. (Guard was an original Trio member who left in 1961 and was replaced by Stewart.)

The three are expected to accept the offer and are rehearsing arrangements for a new set of songs for an album. Only three Trio oldies -- "Tijuana Jail," "Sloop John B," and "Buddy Better Get on Down the Line" -- are being considered for the now recording.

The three decided to go ahead with the experiment Without Bob Shane who, along with Reynolds was a member of the group for Its entire 10 years and 29 albums. Shane continued touring after the three disbanded, with an assortment of sidekicks under the name the New Kingston Trio.

Although "inconvenience" is given by the others as the reason for Shane not being a part of reorganization -- Shane lives in Georgia, the others on the West Coast -- personal differences also account for his absence.

Shane recently Purchased the rights to the Kingston Trio name for What one source termed a "huge" sum of money from Reynolds and former Trio manager Frank Werber. What Reynolds, Stewart and Guard will call their group -- possibly just the Trio -- has not been decided.

But Stewart said, "None of the three of us ever wanted to use the same name, Kingston Trio. It's too confining and actually not that factual. Since Dave and I have never performed together, it's like a reunion of a group that never was."

THE KEY MAN In the regrouping wan Reynolds. As one Promoter said. "any combination of three of the four guys will work as long as Nick is one of the three." Reynolds was the most recognizable of the trio as "the little guy" at the center of the group.

The most reluctant of the reunitees, Reynolds to referred to as "the Howard Hughes of the music world" by Stewart. Since the trio's retirement he has stayed secluded on a vast Oregon farm, and only ventured to Southern California In June to consider the now Project.

While Reynolds represented the all-American College boy during the Trio's heyday, Dave Guard was responsible for the hip humor and Intellectual Image of the group in the Late 50s.

If Reynolds Is the Howard Hughes of music, the disappearing Guard has been the Judge Crater. After shocking everyone by quitting the group at the height of Its success, he formed another larger group and, after its failure, moved to Australia for six years.

Since his return to the States in 1968, he has taught a unique method of guitar study in Northern California.

Guard. 41, but almost unchanged In the last decade, terms the trio mania of years past "a phenomenon more than a musical event."

AFTER THE TRIO'S 1967 dissolution, Stewart, 36, and his wife, Buffy Ford, toured the nation In 1968 singing as part of the Bobby Kennedy Presidential campaign. Since then he has cut eight highly acclaimed albums, One of them with Buffy.

In an English poll, his "California Bloodlines" was voted one of the top 10 albums ever recorded. However, Stewart's record sales have never matched the enthusiasm of his reviewers and fans and he is considered a West Coast and Southwest "cult" performer.

Because of his solo Performing and song-writing duties -- several of hie songs will be Included In the new repertoire -- he is a semi-reluctant reunitee.

'Would a reunion Work? There are Various opinions in the music world. Reynolds thinks It Would "Only if It's fun am hassle-free," which could be a key to Possible success.

The Trio was Always a fun group, and those In favor of the new effort think that a large section of the public can still Identify With a group that sings of American history and folklore; that performs without screechIng amps; and that taken them back to the days when performers actually talked to their audiences.

-- THANK YOU to Tom Lamb for sharing a photo copy
of the foregoing article for our reading enjoyment.

Last revised: February 23, 2006.