(Capitol CDP 7 96836 2)

MAKE WAY (original Capitol release number ST-1474) 1961 was a year of profound change for the Kingston Trio. By year's end a new face and voice would join the group, and its leader would depart. The final two albums by Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane -- the original Kingston Trio -- are collected on this forth in a series of special Capitol "Double Play" compact discs.

Released in January (Recorded November, 1960), MAKE WAY would make its way to #2 on the album chart. It is unique among the albums of the original Kingston Trio in that it is a very "laid back" work. No hit singles are to be found (only "En El Agua" was released on 45 -- as a B in the USA and an A in Great Britain), and although the performances are rendered with craftsman-like precision, someone seems to have turned down the enthusiasm meter just ever so slightly.

There's another word to describe MAKE WAY: evolution. The Trio (especially Dave) was concerned by media and peer criticism that they were over-commercializing folk music. It's a point of pure speculation, but the Trio may very well have asked producer Voyle Gilmore to leave some of the rough edges on this time around. This is not to imply in any way that this is a poor album. Even on their worst day, The Kingston Trio was a darn good band, and this was certainly far from being their worst day!

Indeed, some of the Trio's finest performances grace MAKE WAY. Bob Shane's solo on "Blow the Candle Out" was one of his very best, and Bob's voice was one of the very best of the era. An interesting productin touch here is Bob actually blowing out a candle ot the very end of the track! Dave's solo on Jane Bower's "Speckled Roan" was certainly one of his most memorable, and Hick is impressive on "Hangman." The group's dramatic turns on "Bonny Hielan' Laddie" and Woody Guthrie's "Hard Travelin'," as well as their tender harmonies on "The River Is Wide" and "Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies," are standouts. Listen for some beautiful "extra" guitar work from bassist David "Buck" Wheat on the latter.

Humor rears its head on MAKE WAY in "Jug of Punch," "Oh, Yes, Oh" and "En El Agua." The latter was the source of a lawsuit over publishing royalties (like "Tom Dooley" and a few others before it). The Trio members had known the song since childhood and assumed it was in the Public Domain, but it had had actually been written in 1938 for a Mexican music festival by Antonio Fernandez, and he had taken the trouble to have it copywrighted in the United States. As "En El Agua" got some airplay south of the border, Mr. Fernandez eventually heard it and "inquired." There were red faces all around, to be sure!

MAKE WAY was a sterp in musical evolution of the most popular group of its day. Like Fleetwood Mac would later do with TUSK, the Kingston Trio sought to redefine its direction by making s relatively non-commercial album with MAKE WAY. And like the Mac, the Trio would come back cleansed and loaded for bear on their next recording.

This album was cut just before we left for Tokyo, and we wanted to turn out some especially good tunes just in case the tour bogged-down in Tahiti. Sort of a farewell album, you know, because you never can predict what might happen when such sensitive, intellegent artists set down in the "goofing-off capitol" of the world.

Bob, Dave and Nick (The Kingston Trio)

PASTURES OF PLENTY An important work by folk music's voice of the 1930's, Woodie Guthrie. Woody had no peer in this field of adapting old melodies (in this case, Pretty Polly) to meaningful new lyrics

COAST OF CALIFORNIA There's a strong Spanish flavor to this dark and moody ballad which tells a tale of adventure, piracy, and hidden gold. As students of early California history will agree, the story has a strong factual basis.

IT WAS VERY GOOD YEAR This very haunting melody tells one man's idea of a full life. Interestingly, the song is built on a series of chords characteristic of Flamenco, which one ordinarily thinks of as a fiery type of music.

GUARDO EL LOBO is a 15th century Spanish Villancico. This song is beautiful by modern standards, yet it was sung in Spain even before Columbus set sail for the new world. In its native toung the poetry of its lyrics is superb, and in any language of century it actually swings.

RAZORS IN THE AIR An entire valuable body of native American music has all but dird out as a result of the stress of 20th Century life: the minstrel song. This number deserves its rescue.

BILLY GOAT HILL is almost an exercise in Southern gospel harmony. Such groups as the Chuck Wagon Gang, The Nash Family, and many others are well known for this kind of boyant, momentum-gathering sound. Billy Goat Hill is a secular song, but its roots are in church music.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND Guthrie's greatest work. Interestingly enough, some canadians have also adapted the song, using the words "from Bona Vista to Vancouver Island." Who knows where it will be sung next . . . everyboby's welcome.

RUN MOLLY, RUN Echoes one of the first Bluegrass bands -- Bill Monroe and his group (including the great Earl Scruggs and Lester Flat). Bluegrass music, with its hard-driving tempos and raucous harmonies, is currently one of the most vital forces in America's folk culture.

SEÑORA A beautiful melody from 18th century Chile, coupled with a timeless sentiment expressed in the lyrics written by Jane Bowers, gives us another inkling of what life is really all about, after all.

LEMON TREE Here's a sad love story which contains a familiar moral. The tune was composed by Will Holt, from whom the Trio first heard M.T.A., and Raspberries, Strawberries.

YOU DON'T KNOCK The Trio pulled out all the stops in their version of this rousing spiritual, and the result is an enthusiastic performance that rocks from beginning to end.

Produced by VOYLE GILMORE

GOIN' PLACES (original Capitol release number ST-1474) The tenth and final album recorded by Dave, Nick and Bob was a fine one, and one of their most eclectic, song-wise.

GOIN' PLACES was recorded in Los Angeles (Like MAKE WAY) at Capitol's Studio B in January 1961. Shortly after its completion, Capitol held a ceremony (January 19th) to present the group with four gold album awards for THE KINGSTON TRIO, FROM THE HUNGRY i, (both featured on Trio Double Play #1), AT LARGE and HERE WE GO AGAIN (Double Play #2). The next day, manager Frank Werber and the boys embarked on their first foreign tour. After their return, on May 11th, Dave Guard announced his intention to resign from the Kingston Trio. In June amidst the resultant furor, GOIN' PLACES was released to understandably emotionally-mixed reviews.

Dave left the Trio for two main reasons: He was upset that an employee had reportedly pilfered a sizable sum of money from the Trio's music publishing company, High Ridge Music; and Dave wanted the Trio to grow, musically. Nick and Bob decided not to press the embezzlement charge, and -- more critically -- they felt the group's musical expertise hand gone as far as it needed to. Dave was out voted, and probably felt that tendering his resignation would impress his band-mates with the gravity of the situation. Dave felt it was time for the Trio to disband (if it could not progress), but he offered to stay on to fulfill the group's concert commitments through November and to record a final album (which was to be titled THE KINGSTON TRIO ON TOUR). Dave had a large hand in writing the liner notes for GOIN' PLACES, and these words stand out: ". . . a farewell album, you know, because you never can predict what might happen . . ." Nick and Bob (and Frank Werber) decided to keep the group going, and they hired John Stewart of the Cumberland Three as Dave's replacement. By mid-August, Dave Guard's years as a member of the Kingston Trio were over.

All that having been said, GOIN' PLACES served as a strong parting effort for Dave, Nick and Bob. Although it attained only a #3 showing on the chart, it did rack-up forty-one weeks on the Top Forty. Undoubtedly, Dave's leaving offfended enough fans to prevent GOIN' PLACES (and MAKE WAY) from going to #1 or earning a gold record.

Two of GOIN' PLACES tracks were actually wonderful "leftovers" from the recording sessions from the previous year's STRING ALONG release (Double Play #3), and they are two of the best performances on the album. Woody Guthrie's most famous song, "This Land is Your Land," and "Coast of California," a Dave Guard / Jane Bowers composition, are brilliantly executed. Note especially the dramatic guitar and banjo work on the latter.

"You're Gonna Miss Me" was a roof-raising new arrangement of "Frankie and Johnny" by Dave Guard and the members of a group called the New Lost City Ramblers. It was released as a single on March 8th, but it failed to chart. The track was the last 45 released while dave was with the group.

The last song recorded by Dave, Nick and Bob was Ervin Drake's "It Was a Very Good Year," probably the finest song on GOIN' PLACES. Bob's vocal solo was nothing less than brilliant, and actually outshines Sinatra's 1966 hit version. Dave Wheat's guitar playing on this track was memorable as well.

Wheat's guitar virtuosity also added beauty to Dave's endearing solo on "Señora," another Guard / Bowers work. The guitar and vocal blend for one of the most mesmerizing of all Trio performances. Fittingly, this recording of "Señora" was chosen to be played at the memorial service for Guard, who passed away on March 22, 1991, after a determined war with cancer.

The Kingston Trio received a 1961 Grammy nomination, but it wasn't for either MAKE WAY or GOIN' PLACES. Capitol decided its best chances would be with CLOSE-UP, the maiden effort from the Reynolds / Shane / Stewart Trio (to be featured on Trio Double Play #5, due for release in 1992) which was nominated in the vocal group category. Dave Guard was persuaded to stay with capitol, for whom he released one additional album titled after his new group, DAVE GUARD AND THE WHISKEYHILL SINGERS (April 1962), a short-lived quartet of which Dave Wheat was also a member.

Elsewhere in 1961, a new group called the Highwaymen kept folk alive on the singles chart with their million-selling #1 smash, "Michael." And in New York City, producer / manager Albert Grossman, sensing a momentary waning in the public's devotion to the mighty Kingston Trio, literally created a new folk trio -- Peter, Paul and Mary -- out of available talent in Greenwich Village. Ironically, the group's first single would be "Lemon Tree," a song deftly borrowed from GOIN' PLACES.

The Kingston Trio of Nick, Bob and John still had many great albums ahead of them, and classic singles like "Greenback Dollar," "The Reverend Mr. Black," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" would rightfully establish their special place in the folk continum. The Trio changed, just as America changed, it began when the country was "Ike"; by the time Dave Guard left, it was "JFK."

On reference book labels the Kingston Trio "the originators of the folk music craze of the Sixties," thereby attempting to damn the group with fain praise. But folk music is not a craze: "Disco" was a craze. Folk is alive and well, although it has undergone some transformations. One theoretical chart documents the "personalization" of the genre over the decades from the Weavers (a quartet) through the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, to the duo of Simon and Garfunkel, solo act John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot, through the present popularity of Susanne Vega, Tracy Chapman and Christine Lavin. Folke has become an individual expression, and yet those "groovy harmonies" of the past still echo in modern trios like the Washington Squares, Schoober Fare and Devonsquare. Blame it all on the Kingston Trio, please!

This amazing disc is your time machine to 1961 and the final two albums of magig from the original Kingston Trio. Enjoy the trip!

-- Ben Blake, June 1991

(Ben is the editor and co-author of the book, THE KINGSTON TRIO ON RECORD)

Analog tape recorder used during session recording and subsequent mixing and / or editing, digital tape recorder used during mastering (transcription)

This Compact Disc contains program transferred from analog tape and therefore may contain some tape hiss and other anomalies that exist with analog recording.

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(C) 1992 Capitol Record, Inc.
Manufactured by 1992 Capitol Record, Inc.* Printed in U.S.A.