Customer Reviews

Capitol Collectors Series

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Let's get this straight up front, the Kingston trio were a squeaky clean folk group with no real political agenda (leftist or otherwise), but for the five years represented on this single-disc collection they recorded a substantial body of high caliber work. [And don't let the matching striped shirts and clean-cut looks turn you off--in fact, the cover photo reminds me a lot of the Beach Boy publicity shots from the early Sixties.]

They charted seventeen songs on Billboard's Top 40 chart and they're all here, beginning with the No. 1 "Tom Dooley" in 1958 and ending with "Ally Ally Oxen Free" which charted at No. 62 in 1963.

This disc's first ten tracks feature the original classic lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds. While the Trio may be seen more as popularizers than innovators, they hit the charts consistently with traditional fare like "Tom Dooley," "Raspberries, Strawberries" and "A Worried Man," along with novelty material like "M.T.A." and "Bad Man's Blunder." [Their humor could be subtle, too. Listen to the end of "Everglades" when they sing "Runnin' through the trees from the Everlys" and close out with the intro to "Bird Dog"!]

In 1961 Guard left the band and was replaced by John Stewart (who came from The Cumberland Three, another folk group whose manager also managed the Trio). This version of the group would hit the charts with Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Hoyt Axton's "Greenback Dollar" and their only Stewart-era Top 10 "Reverend Mr. Black," which featured Glen Campbell on banjo. While Stewart (after leaving the Trio in 1967) would be known primarily as a songwriter--notably the Monkee's "Daydream Believer--his only hit with the Trio was the string-laden "One More Town." The biggest surprise was to find a version of "Seasons in the Sun," recorded a decade before Terry Jacks would take it to No. 1 in 1974.

Overall, this is a concise collection of the cream of the Trio's output which should satisfy all but the most dedicated fans. [They can revel in the 4-CD The Capitol Years box set--with more than three dozen previously unreleased songs.] But this disc is a real treat for casual fans and the uninitiated as well. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

There are all sorts of Kingston Trio compilations out there, but this one is as good as it gets, both in terms of sound quality and selection of songs. From satire to serious to gorgeous ballads to downright funny material, the Kingston Trio did it all, with wonderful harmonizing, great acoustic guitar and banjo playing, and infectious enthusiasm; they never overdo anything and in fact are often understated, letting the music speak for itself; and even on standards such as Where Have All the Flowers Gone they manage to put their own unique stamp on a song. An indispensible CD to any lover of folk music.

I am old, and discovered the Kingston Trio when "Tom Dooley" first was issued as a 45 rpm single in the l950's. I ended up buying every KT record issued until they left Capitol for Decca. I don't have the vinyl ones anymore, they wore out long ago, but I do have this CD collection. While many of my favorite Trio songs are not on it, because they were never issued as singles, what is presented here is excellent. The album booklet is wonderful as well...almost the quality of Smithsonian-Folkways research. You really can't go wrong buying this collection.

The Kingston trio were one of the most important folk groups of the late fifties and early sixties. Although the trio continued to perform with various line-ups for many years afterwards, it is their period with Capitol (1958-1964) on which their reputation is based and from which this set is compiled.

No imagination was used in compiling this set, as twenty singles by the Kingston trio during this time and they are all included - no omissions, no bonus tracks. Devoted fans will always find some tracks that weren't released as singles that they prefer to some that were, but this CD is a great introduction to their music. For most people, it will contain everything required.

The set begins with a single that failed to chart (Scarlet ribbons) and ends with two that failed to chart (The patriot game, Seasons in the sun) but all seventeen tracks in between made the American pop charts. Seasons in the sun, the final track, is a cover of Rod McKuen's translation of Le Moribond, a song written by Jacques Brel. The version here was recorded in 1963 but the song remained obscure until Terry Jacks had a worldwide pop hit with it in 1974.

Of their seventeen American hits, Tom Dooley was the biggest. It topped the charts in America and was also a huge British hit. Nothing else made much impact in Britain chart-wise, but Tijuana jail reached number two in America. Reverend Mr Black was a top ten hit, while two other singles - M T A and Worried man - made the top twenty and two others - Where have all the flowers gone (a cover of the classic Pete Seeger song) and Greenback dollar (written by Hoyt Axton) - just missed the top twenty. Three other songs made the top forty but the remaining hits were very minor, some just making it into the top hundred.

For anybody interested in the folk boom of the early sixties, a Kingston trio collection is essential, and this is the best single-CD collection there is.

The Kingston Trio is one of the great folk groups from the fifties and sixties. Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane and Dave Guard started the phenomenon that would become the legendary Trio. Later, Dave Guard would leave and would be replaced by John Stewart of The Journeymen fame. This greatest hits disc is full of their most famous tunes. There is probably not a song on this disc you haven't heard. The Trio is probably most noted for "Tom Dooley", but it is not their best work by far, and here's the perfect place to hear their best.

There are so many great songs the Trio performed, and all the songs here are great as well. The political ad "M.T.A." about Charlie not having enough money to get off the subway having to spend the rest of his life riding the trains through Boston. "The Tijuana Jail", "Everglades," and "Reverend Mr. Black" are other examples of their famous cuts, but there are other songs here that make this compilation complete. The beautiful "Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)", the tongue in cheek "Raspberries, Strawberries," the nationalistic song of rebellion in "The Patriot Game," and the strange "Coo-Coo-U" also make this album.

For anyone who is a fan of the Trio or folk in general, this is a great album to have. It doesn't show the true Trio, as they were a live act, dynamic and changing, never performing a song the same way twice, and having such fun between songs. Instead this is the cut and dried version of the Trio straight from the studio. This album is great, but live Trio stuff is even better.

Well, they're all here--all the great hits of the Kingston Trio and the audio is very good. But some of the other songs I was not familiar with turned out to be winners too. Can't listen to this too often or I start to sing out loud at work. I hadn't heard "Tijuana Jail" or "Riding on the M.T.A." for many years, and now I can't get them out of my head. What a great group.

The propelling force behind the folk music boom of the sixties, Dave Guard, Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, and John Stewart were an influence to countless bands, from the Beach Boys to the Byrds, and, until four lads from Liverpool wandered upon the shores of the New World, were Capitol Records' best-selling group.Formed in the mid-peninsula region of the San Francisco Bay Area, artists such as the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane cut their teeth on the Trio's folk experiments, ran it through an amplifier, and washed it down with acid, to become the historic sound that is still revered by many today, even in the twenty-first century.This collection is an essential "best of" for any studious music fan. The Trio walked the fine line between hipness and cocktail, for as long as the public allowed, even surviving the defection of their creative spark, Dave Guard, paving the way for his replacement, the awesome, John Stewart.Listening to this volume of the "Collector's Series" is a discourse in popular music itself, as one can imagine the time, from the Space Age, through the Kennedy years, passing by in the blink of an eye.This is a great CD, and the closest to encapsulating those precious times.The legacy would be further continued with Stewart at the helm on "Decca Years," but this CD represents the Trio, and perhaps, America, at its peak.

This CD has all their classic hits and shows the wide range of their folk songs. If your old vinyl records are worn and skipping, replace them with this. You'll remember why you liked the Kingston Trio years ago and hear that their songs are still great.

I bought this CD mainly to get "Desert Pete," which is hard to find anywhere. There is a wealth of other music and treasures here on this album that surprised me. The liner notes are very informative listing such things as how many takes it took for each recording and the dates of the performances. The recordings are the original hits. All of the charted songs are here with information of how high the song got on Billboard's top 100. A complete story of how the group came together and what happened to them after fame had passed. There is a bit of added dialog and musical mistakes on "Worried Man." My favorites are "Desert Pete," "Tom Dooley," "M.T.A.," "Reverend Mr. Black" and "Worried Man." Capitol did this one right. If you listen to "Bad Man's Blunder" and like it, try Johnny Cash's version of "Transfusion Blues" from his album "Now, There was a Song." It is very similar but with a different tune and rhythm. Tom Willett

Any of Capitol's Collector Series releases is an A+ purchase, but in this one they outdid themselves in presenting all 17 of the Billboard Pop hits delivered by this San Francisco folk trio. The only hit not represented here, in fact, is 1965's Parchment Farm (Blues) which made it to # 30 on the Adult Contemporary charts [introduced in 1961 as the Easy Listening charts). But of course that was done for Decca and this represents their heyday at Capitol.

Folk music, as a separate genre in the recording industry, has deep roots going back to the likes of Woody Guthrie, Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, The Carter Family, Pete Seeger and The Almanac Singers in the 1940s, and Burl Ives. The ultimate folk group was, of course, The Weavers, of which Seeger was also an integral part, but when they fell out of favour in the early 1950s, due mainly to political blacklisting, the style more or less faded away.

Until, that is, right in the midst of the birth pangs of R&R, along came Harry Belafonte with the calypso folk sound for RCA Victor in 1956 and, the following year, Terry Gilkyson & The Easy Riders on Columbia, The Tarriers for the small Glory label, and one Jimmie Rodgers who, for Roulette, would reach back to The Weavers and beyond for some of his material.

Capitol then jumped in with Dave Guard [banjo] and Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds [guitars] to relate the unlikely story of Tom Dooley, based on a traditional African folk song dating back to 1868 as Tom Dula. That shot to not only # 1 on the pop charts in the fall of 1958, but also to # 9 on the R&B charts.

And while none of their other singles would come close to repeating that success [The Reverend Mr. Black, their next best at # 8 pop in 1963 also scored on the R&B charts, going to # 15], their LP sales went through the roof. Five of their first six albums - The Kingston Trio [1958], The Kingston Trio At Large [1959], Here We Go Again [1950], Sold Out [1960], and String Along [1960], all would go to # 1 and eventually reach Gold Record status. The sixth, 1959's From The Hungry i, had to settle for a # 2 - but still went Gold.

With the insert you get an opening page written by Nick Reynolds, nine full pages of liner notes by Robin Callot and Paul Surratt, a complete discography of the contents, and a two-page spread in the middle reproducing LP/poster covers and 45rpm records.

At first the Kingston Trio and Rodgers dominated the field, but their phenomenal successes soon paved the way for others like The Brothers Four in 1960, Peter, Paul & Mary in 1962, Joan Baez in 1963, and then a host of others.