Customer Reviews

Something Special/Back in Town

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The SOMETHING SPECIAL-BACK IN TOWN Kingston Trio CD is a combination of two unique KT recordings. I had both albums many years ago but they were in mono sound so the high quality CD recording seems especially outstanding. The songs on SOMETHING SPECIAL all have an orchestra background. While the sound is not traditional KT, I think the strings add a beautiful touch to "One More Town" and "Pulling Away." BACK IN TOWN is a live recording at San Francisco's Hungry i. Along with some excellent songs ("Ann" "Farewell Captain") it captures the feeling of a classic KT concert by including the jokes and stories spoken between the songs. There is a slight variation from the old album. Rather than start each selection with talking and ending with a song, the CD selections start with the song and end with talking. A great collection!

Let me just say that this CD is worth the price for "Back in Town" alone. The only reason I'm giving it 3 stars and not 5 is that "Something Special" is really not. The song selectons are not the best--and they--to me anyway--are OVER produced. The Kingston Trio were always best in their 'rawist' form,ie live--in concert or in the studio--no strings, no backup vocals.

Not that there is any particular rhyme or reason to which two Kingston Trio albums are being put together on Collector's Choice CDs, but this one is rather interesting. The 1962 album "Something Special" was a studio album that covered mostly old traditional folk songs like "Go Tell It On the Mountain" and "Old Joe Clark" spruced up by a full orchestra playing behind the boys. In contrast, the 1964 album "Back in Town" was a live album, featuring the Kingston Trio at San Francisco's "Hungry i" where they performed their big hit "Tom Dooley," but unless you are a devotee of the group you will be unfamiliar with most of these songs. My preference is for the later live album, mainly because I like my folk music to have a more authentic sound. While I like "One More Town," the musical accompaniment does not need to have anything more than guitars and banjo as far as I am concerned. Besides, there is just a much better feel to the live performances, which includes the jokes and banter along with the singing (e.g., "Farewell Captain," "So Hi"). I would rate "Something Special" as a 3 and "Back in Town" as a 4, rounding up because, after all, you are getting two albums on one CD. Final thought: there is a two year gap between the albums and one is studio while the other is live, but notice that there are no duplications on any of the songs, which might be the ultimate logic behind this pairing in the end.

This CD version is not totally the version I purchased as a 33 and a third long playing vinyl in 1964. Two, or even three songs have been changed, causing a loss of quality the original orchestral backed group produced on vinyl.

My three-star ranking here represents the mean of these two albums together. Something Special is, despite what the title may indicate, nothing special, and while I wouldn't say it's bad, I've only given it a single listen. But Back in Town is an album I love. I listened to the vinyl copy my mom owned many times as a kid, and I've listened to it many times since. It's not their strongest live album -- the performance of "Tom Dooley" is pretty anemic -- but I do enjoy the stage patter, and I would rank "Columbus Stockade" and "So Hi" right up near the top of everything they've done. So, two stars for Something Special, four for Back in Town.

These songs are as good as I remember them and bring back so many memories. So much fun to listen and sing along. The Kingston Trio are timeless.