Advertisement

SAN DIEGO COUNTY : Kingston Trio Strumming a Comeback to Packed Houses

Share

One night last summer, the phone rang in Nick Reynolds’ modest Coronado home. On the other end of the line was Bob Shane; he was calling to invite Reynolds to rejoin the Kingston Trio, the seminal folk troupe the two had founded in 1957.

Reynolds, whose 1967 departure left Shane as the group’s only original member, immediately accepted the invitation. And ever since, the rejuvenated Kingston Trio has once again been singing to packed houses all around the country, polishing off such golden oldies as “Tom Dooley,” “Reverend Mr. Black” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

“It feels great, touring with the trio after more than 20 years,” said Reynolds, a Coronado native. “Of course, being on the road so much gets a little tiring; when you’re 55, it’s a lot different than when you’re 25.

Advertisement

“But the audiences are as good as, if not better than, they were the first time around, which is great for not only the ego, but the cash flow.”

The cash is more important than the ego gratification, Reynolds said. Had it not been for that phone call from Shane, he would probably still be tending bar at the Bulas restaurant in Coronado. That’s how he had been supporting himself since 1986, when he returned to his hometown after spending nearly two decades “leading the soft life up in Oregon, ranching and raising kids,” he said with a laugh.

The restaurant job, Reynolds said, “kept me off the streets.”

“Sure, I had some good money saved up from my days with the Kingston Trio,” he said, “but it wasn’t nearly as much as you’d think because of taxes, inflation and bad management. You’re just so busy performing and making records that you don’t pay attention to such things. And, when you retire for 20 years with nothing really coming in, you tend to spend more than you made.”

Reynolds has been singing since he was a child, harmonizing with his father, mother and sister at family gatherings and neighborhood block parties. In the early 1950s, he moved to San Francisco, where he attended Menlo Business College. There, he became fast friends with classmate Bob Shane and Stanford University student Dave Guard, with whom Shane had grown up in Hawaii.

“They shared my interest in group singing and harmony,” Reynolds recalled, “so we started singing calypso and Hawaiian songs at beer bars, fraternity parties, things like that. Gradually, we got into folk music, and we got a job at this little folk club in San Francisco called the Purple Onion, which was a real bohemian hangout. All of a sudden, we became the overnight sensation of San Francisco night life.”

Record offers inevitably followed and, in 1958, they were signed by Capitol Records.

The Kingston Trio’s first single, “Tom Dooley,” spent 18 weeks in the national Top 40, hitting No. 1 in October, 1958. The success of that song set in motion the folk-music revival of the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Years later, such notable folk singers as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary would cite the Kingston Trio as a major influence.

Advertisement

“They’re paying us a great compliment,” Reynolds said. “We were Everyman’s singing group, playing two chords and singing in the people’s key, while they were fantastic musicians who practiced a lot harder and took the whole (folk) thing a lot farther than we did.”

Still, the early bird gets the worm, and from 1958 and 1963, the Kingston Trio got quite a bellyful. They sold millions of records and hit the Top 40 nine more times. They regularly toured the country, playing to thousands of people a night, appeared on virtually every television variety and talk show and even made the cover of Life magazine.

“But none of us ever took the star thing very seriously,” Reynolds said. “People would come up to us in restaurants and ask for autographs, but it wasn’t so much the bubble gum set as it was the college kids, so there were no big mob scenes--and it never got very crazy.”

With the arrival of the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion bands, the folk fad began to subside. The Kingston Trio’s last Top 40 hit was “Desert Pete,” in August, 1963. And, after four years of steadily declining record sales and concert draws, the group broke up.

“We could see what was happening, so we bowed out gracefully,” Reynolds said. “There were no tears or anguish; it was pretty much cut-and-dried.”

Reynolds gave up music and moved to a rural town on the southern coast of Oregon, where he bought a ranch. Fellow San Diegan John Stewart, who had replaced Dave Guard in 1961, began a largely uneventful solo career as a singer-songwriter. And Shane, after a few years of retirement, reformed the Kingston Trio in 1973 with two new partners.

Advertisement

But the comeback of the real Kingston Trio had to await the return of Reynolds.

“Bobby and I were the sound in the first place, and now that the sound is back, so are the crowds,” Reynolds said. “There’s a tremendous resurgence in terms of people wanting to see the group and relive their college days, particularly since there are now two out of three original members.

“We’re not playing the big field houses we used to play, but smaller auditoriums, mostly on college campuses. But the audience response is better than ever, and so is the money.”

How long will this ride last?

“It’s hard to say,” Reynolds said. “But the other day, when we were playing, I looked over at Bobby, he looked over at me, we both grinned at each other, and he said, ‘How about 10 more years?’ And I said, ‘OK, as long as you want to do it, I want to do it, and the people want to hear it.’ ”

Advertisement