what happened to george grove andbill zorn and the kingston yrio

Dorsum in 1957, when Beaver Cleaver faced second course and Ike faced the Cold War with more than golf, Bob Shane, Dave Baby-sit and Nick Reynolds decided to requite the folk music thing a try. Good move. Their debut album in '58 went gold and stayed on the charts for 4 years. Probably best known for that bad boyfriend ballad of all time, "Tom Dooley," which won them a Grammy for all-time Country & Western Operation (no Folk category then), the Kingstons helped put folk on the map. It was depression tech folk — two guitars, a banjo and three swell voices.

Even a short listing of their hits would include "Scotch & Soda," "Bad Homo'due south Blunder," "Tijuana Jail" and "M.T.A." and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Not protest singers, even though they did sing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" on the White House lawn in '66, the trio was ever well-nigh having good, clean fun through songs that were relentlessly goofy, PG-rated Americana, perhaps reminding u.s. of what we idea we were once upon a time and possibly, what nosotros should aspire to be again. Oh, and the Beatles opened for them once.

To review: The Kingston Trio showed upwardly and helped to popularize folk music. They stayed a while, and so went away, and so came back, and then wouldn't go away with line-upward changes, and now, after the customary lawsuit, they're back, sort of, but conspicuously as "dorsum" as they're ever going to exist. The Kingston Trio 3.0 volition headline the Folk Reunion at the Borough Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks at a geezer-friendly Sunday afternoon show with John Sebastian opening.

Winners of said lawsuit and blessed by the only surviving member of the band, Bob Shane, the new version of the Trio is led by Josh Reynolds — son of Nick — and ably assisted by Mike Marvin and Tim Gorelangton. The original Trio had hundreds and hundreds of songs — the new version, also will be in no danger of running out of textile. Josh Reynolds discussed the latest during a recent phoner.

Wow, Josh, you called on fourth dimension; therefore, you lot guys must always start on time.

I similar to be punctual.

A rare trait for a musician.

Very unique. Information technology's very nice to come across you. I was just reading a couple of articles of yours. I just read an Avett Brothers commodity that I idea was very prissy.

Thanks for the kind words. Those guys are corking. Y'all can take them anywhere. And so tell me about the new band — this is Kingston Trio 3.0?

That's exactly correct — it'southward literally a reboot of the franchise.

So how did yous three guys turn into the Kingston Trio 3.0?

You want to hear a trivial history of me?

Is that a trick question? I want to hear information technology all. …

I was born in the Bay Area in 1960, and my dad was in the band right at the height of their popularity when we were living in Sausalito. In 1963 Mike Marvin, who is my cousin, came to alive with us. My dad mentored him and was a father figure to him in many ways, so Mike and I have been very, very shut our entire lives. And I didn't play music my whole life. I didn't play music at all until about eight years ago.

Actually?

Nope, not at all. When my dad retired, he put everything away. He was not the type to sit around and play a song for you lot at a party or anything. He was in the Kingston Trio and when he came off the route, he put his instruments away. He was a really fun and great guy merely his music was work for him and when he was off piece of work, he did what he wanted to do which was to laugh and tell jokes, have a adept time and exist a skilful dad.

OK and then.

Then what happened when he passed abroad in 2008, I started picking up the issues and i thing led to another and then Bob Shane, whom I'd known all my life equally my dad's partner and the last surviving member of the trio, reached out and invited me to play with them on a PBS special. And then George Grove, Neb Zorn and Rick Dougherty — the past line-up of the trio invited me to come up play and sing "M.T.A." with them a couple of times on the road and and so I started singing at fantasy camp. I had some fun, so Mike and I decided to phone call Tim Gorelangton, who lives in Reno and had known Mike for many, many years. Near four years ago, we got together for a lark and our voices blended very, very well but we actually didn't accept whatever bid dreams at that time, so we started playing lilliputian gigs, calling ourselves the Lion Sons and that'southward considering my dad's a Leo and nosotros were his sons in music, playing all Kingston Trio songs plus a couple of John Stewart songs. So Tim and Mike brought me along and the last twelvemonth and a half have been totally devoted to music.

The thing is we really desire to go the Kingston Trio name back into the public'due south awareness and civilization because a lot of people don't remember them and they don't remember the impact they had on American culture past getting everyone up and singing.

The Beatles opened for them once, then there y'all go.

A long fourth dimension ago, exactly. Bob Shane said that after they get-go saw those guys that he mentioned casually to an executive at EMI, that at the fourth dimension endemic Capitol Records — and next thing you know, the Beatles got signed to Capitol Records, but the label figured that they couldn't really handle two groups at one time, and so the trio was released from their contract and signed with Decca, I believe. Dave Baby-sit had left in 1961 and was replaced by John Stewart and by 1964 or so, the trio knew it was like a locomotive coming their way and they had to become out of the way.

Wasn't their motto, "Likewise much fun is not plenty?"

Exactly. Too much fun is non plenty — that's exactly the kind of affair my dad or Bob would say. That was their mantra, actually. To our minds, they were the single mic entertainers — and they really, really were entertainers. And the thing that'south actually great about us, which is one of the few parallels nosotros have with those guys, is that nosotros really enjoy each other's company. Nosotros take fun with each other. We tumble onto the stage as if we were backstage having a raucous party and we bring the political party with u.s. and nosotros get everybody singing, laughing, and participating in the evidence.

The Kingston Trio entered the American consciousness in 1957, so what can they tell united states of america 60 years later in 2017?

That's a very good question. Some of these songs that were popular in the late '50s and early '60s notwithstanding have the same meaning now. Some things haven't changed, like when you recollect of an anti-war song, "Merry Minuet;" and if you think of that whole affair right at present with "Lilliputian Rocket Man" and President Trump — the Flop is back in the common vernacular, which is what that song is all about.

And he "don't like anybody very much. …"

That's right. We've had a lot of discussions internally about the tensions in the world overall and how it's time to bring back some music that will bring people together — to get people to bond together through music and singing together; and if we can practice that simple thing, it will help brand the world a better place.

In that location's so many songs of so many albums … so how many songs have you guys had to larn?

Don't quote me on this but I think in that location'due south over 500 songs that the Trio did — and I could exist off on my numbers, merely I have learned about 100 of them.

OK. That's more than enough for a show then.

Yes, of course, but back to your question about what this trio wants to say. We're very involved in community outreach. I know that sounds very bland and cliché, but nosotros really mean it. We are going to practice everything nosotros tin can to assistance people. Our offset prove in southern Oregon, we raised $12,000 for the local victims of wildfires up in Oregon. Nosotros've also put out the world that we'd like to help anyone involved in whatsoever sort of national disaster — Napa, Texas, Florida or Puerto Rico — wherever it might be. That's what nosotros want to do — assistance people.

So when was the last Kingston Trio testify and when was the first Kingston Trio 3.0 show?

Our starting time testify as the Kingston Trio was in Redman, Oregon, two weeks ago only we've been playing as the Lion Sons for four years. Bob Shane retired about 13 years ago and Bill Zorn took over for Bob. It was Pecker Zorn, George Grove and Rick Doughtery for the terminal 12 years.

OK. Last time I saw them, it was your dad, Bob Shane and George Grove, and then I saw them a few times before that. One time at the Ventura County Off-white, they were playing "Three Jolly Coachmen," and Bob broke a string and replaced it within about xv seconds while the other two guys fake scowled at him — none of them missing a beat. Pretty astonishing.

Yeah, they really had it downwards. They were the complete professionals.

Then as a kid, why didn't you end upward a Deadhead, a punker, a metalhead or something else?

I think that some of the people that grew upward with successful parents, relatives or people that are close to them, when I wanted to brand my own identity, I didn't desire to be associated with. …

Then was it sort of a brunt being the son of …?

Well, I tin't say that it was a brunt. You can't say, "Woe is me," when yous have this thing in your life. You can't. But I did make a witting decision that I wanted to make my own manner and not ride on the coattails of my father, and then I had a pretty successful career in advertizing for 30 years. I was a commercial producer and I worked on very high-end commercial brands, but after my dad passed away, something striking me. I was listening to their music on my iPod and getting really emotional, and something merely clicked. It was a combination of things. People would always ask me if I played and for many years I answered, "No, I don't," but after my dad was gone, and John Stewart had passed abroad, and the current line-up of the Trio were probably close to proverb, "OK, I've had enough of the route," so I looked at it with Mike and Tim and they really seemed to be into it and Bob Shane seemed actually into it; and I looked at it and said, "OK, this may be weird simply I actually enjoy this music and I feel my dad when I play it."

Are yous guys going to article of clothing the striped shirts?

Oh, yep, just they're difficult to observe. They're very hard to find.

What are you going to say to all those geezers that come up to y'all guys and say, "I saw the Kingston Trio back in '59"?

I do become a lot of that, just a lot of the times they'd say something like, "I saw your dad but afterward at the hotel, he sat down with us and he bought me a beer. He was the nicest guy." So I look at that kind of behavior of my dad and endeavor to emulate him, and so I don't listen it when people come upwards and tell me a story, and the bulk of the stories are stories of joy.

In that location information technology is again. The Kingston Trio were always all most fun.

That's correct and that's what we want to exercise. We want to accept fun and we desire the audience to have fun. So we're all like brothers and it shows. Nosotros have a good time.

OK, then hither's the question: How do you become new fans for old music?

That is the question right at that place. That is the fundamental. We are acutely aware that the most of import affair in music is the songs. And so we know that the audition for the Trio is from a particular era and we know that we cannot not play "Tom Dooley," and we cannot not play "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" We cannot not play "M.T.A.," but what we've done is take some John Stewart songs and rearranged them and they are like new songs and and so we're bringing in some other songs, so what we're trying to do is make these songs a fiddling more relevant to what'south happening at present while staying to the true Trio thing. Only therein lies the billion-dollar question: How do you bring in new fans for this kind of music? How far practice we deviate to bring these new fans in? And if yous deviate from this mode, from this presentation, from this entertaining humor of what the Kingston Trio was about, and so you start to lose your mode as to what it was all about. Information technology'southward a very fine line on how we evolve and nosotros have found that we are taking this development very slowly, so if it evolves at all, information technology'll be a slow evolution. This is a ring that had a history and a tradition and we take to stay true to that tradition. Nosotros're here for the long booty.

OK, Josh, that should exist more than I need to know, I take the first Kingston Trio on vinyl, and then there's that.

Thanks very much, and thank you for existence a Trio fan.

Beak Locey can exist reached at blocey@pacbell.cyberspace.

GETTING In that location

Folk Reunion with the Kingston Trio iii.0 and John Sebastian at Borough Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Yard Oaks, 2 p.thousand. Nov. 12.
Cost: $35-$55
Call: 449-2787

Locey's picks

If I had a faster car, a richer girlfriend or fifty-fifty i with a job, here'south where I'd be lurking in the dorsum this calendar week:
Morrissey, Billy Idol at Hollywood Bowl (Nov. 10-11)
Dead Boys at Viper Room in Hollywood (Nov. 10)
Katy Perry, Purity Band at Staples Eye (Nov. ten)
The Blasters, Jackass at Borderline in G Oaks (Nov. 10)
Morry Sochat & Memphis Kings at Hong Kong Inn in Ventura (November. 10)
Tiffany Wilson Band, Shylah Ray Sunshine at Deer Guild in Meiners Oaks (Nov. 10)
Immortal Technique at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles (Nov. eleven)
Lee Koch at Madewest Brewery in Ventura (Nov. 11)
Matisyahu at Ventura Theatre (Nov. 11)
Edge of the Due west at Deer Lodge (Nov. 11)
Joanne Mackell & Friends at Deer Guild (Nov. 12)
The Breeders at El Rey Theatre (November. xiii)
The Sounds at the Fonda in Hollywood (Nov. thirteen)
The Clientele at Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles (November. 14)
Ani DiFranco at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles (Nov. fourteen)
Liam Gallagher at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles (Nov. 14)
Teresa Russell at Surfside Seafood in Hueneme (November. 15)
Frank Barajas at Fresco 2 in Oxnard (Nov. fifteen)
Gary Numan at Teragram Ballroom (November. 16)
Gypsy Blues at Hong Kong Inn (November. 16)
Tyler Grant & Friends at Deer Lodge (Nov. 16)

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Source: https://www.vcstar.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/11/06/folk-music-group-kingston-trio-road-version-3-0/837154001/

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