Remembering the Kingston Trio

    Maybe it's a generational 'thing'.  A few days ago, a client and  I were talking  about his favorite musical genre and  groups.  When he asked about the groups  that  were popular  when I was his age, I mentioned The Kingston Trio.  I may as well have named something like 'The Neanderthal Nine' or 'The Medieval Hit Parade'.

   What were some of their 'hits', he asked. When I named the Immortal (to my generation) titles of Tom Dooley, The MTA, and Worried Man,  no recognition registered.

   I remembered that conversation this afternoon  when  I was mindlessly scrolling  YouTube and came across  a video of a reunion concert recorded in 1982.  For the next hour or so, I was transported to an earlier time in my life.

   Wikipedia indicates that the original KT "helped launch the folk revival of the late 1960's." There have been various iterations of the group throughout the intervening years.  All the original members ---Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane ---are deceased but until last year  (and maybe still) a  group has bought the rights to the name and continue to tour.

   I first attended a live concert in Greensboro in the Spring of 1959 when the Trio had become popular.  A fraternity brother and I double-dated (do college  folks still do that?)to attend their tour stop and UNC-Greensboro. Forty years later, Reynolds and Shane and George Grove, returned to Greensboro.  Before the concert, a stage hand brought out a single chair.  In a moment, Reynolds came on using a walker (apparently having had surgery). Before sitting , he surveyed the audience  and quipped, "Damn, you've gotten old!"

  In the intervening years, I attended at least two other concerts. The first  occurred in  Winston-Salem but the more memorable was their gig in the small North Carolina  city of Sanford. My brother and his family and I sat in the second row, perhaps twenty yards from the performers.  This performance came thirty + years since their beginning. In those years, one of the group had added girth to his frame. My brother in the colloquial jargon whispered to me, "Shane is totin' a load". 

    If your generational cohort is similar to mine and you enjoyed the KT or  if you are like the aforementioned  person who had no acquaintance, many YouTube videos await you and  you likely will be able to understand the words. And for  us 'old timers', enjoy  Bob Shane's  version of  Try to Remember.

    Satchel