THE KINGSTON TRIO: REDUX
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“They’re still alive?” I asked my friend Donna when she mentioned getting tickets to see the Kingston Trio at Vinegar Hill Music Theater here in Kennebunkport.
See, I knew them long ago.
Back in the late 1950s, our family of six lived in Titusville, New Jersey, filling every inch of a spacious Dutch Colonial home overlooking the Delaware River. One Christmas morning, Dad surprised us four kids with a stereo record player that spun 33 RPM vinyl discs. The one album we listened to over and over was titled “The Kingston Trio.” Before long, “Tom Dooley,” “Greenback Dollar” and “Scotch and Soda” reverberated through our house from dawn to dusk.
Our home stood only a few feet from the banks of the Delaware so we dubbed ourselves the River Rats. Our group included Jane Maddock, her brother Tom, and her cousin Sally Cumbler, along with several other friends, all of whom enjoyed sitting around listening to the Kingston Trio. (Truth be told, we liked the Weavers too — Pete Seeger! Ronnie Gilbert! “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore!”— but for me, nothing eclipsed the Trio singing “The Seine.” Remember that opening line? “One night along the river at St. Germain des Pres….” I so wanted to be that girl!
My friend Donna assured me that, yes, 65 years later, the Trio is still performing. Just not the originals — Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds are making music in heaven. Instead, we heard three white-haired balding guys with relatively trim tummies, dressed in the Trio’s signature blue and white striped short-sleeve shirts, who ACED every song of my youth. I felt like Claire in “Outlander.” I jumped right back to 1958.
Deftly strumming banjos and guitars with lickety-split fingers, the Trio played to a full house who sang along to some of their best, including “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “This Land is Your Land.” I doubt anyone in the audience had been carded in the last three decades. IF some of us remembered the lyrics, it would be thanks to daily doses of Prevagen. But oh, the memories this group ignited.
With a standing O at the conclusion! Plus three encores!
After getting home, I googled the Kingston Trio and discovered that the original group owed big thanks to Phyllis Diller, of all people, who, in June, 1957, had to cancel her weeklong gig at the Purple Onion Club in San Francisco. The Trio’s agent persuaded the club owner to give the untested musicians a chance. Dave Guard sent out 500 postcards to everyone the three guys knew in the Bay Area. They plastered the city with handbills announcing their engagement. And the Onion was packed!
By 1961, the Trio had sold more than 8 million records for Capital. They notched their first Grammy. Four of their albums rose high on Billboard’s Top LP chart, “an accomplishment unmatched by any artist before or since.” They also played upwards of 200 gigs a year.
Today, I wonder if my four grandkids will go to a concert 65 years from now featuring music by Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny. Between you and me, I can’t sing or NAME any of their songs. But I remember every word of “Charlie and the MTA!"
