Capitol 996
Producer: Voyle Gilmore
Track listing: Three Jolly Coachmen / Bay of Mexico / Banua / Tom Dooley / Fast Freight / Hard, Ain’t It Hard / Sara Jane / (The Wreck of the) “John B” / Santy Anno / Scotch and Soda / Coplas / Little Maggie
November 24, 1958
1 week
“We had no idea we’d ever sell one album,” says the Kingston Trio’s Nick Reynolds, “and neither did Capitol. They said, ‘You guys are a visual act. You’re young, sort of semi-clean cut,’ which was strictly a ruse, because we were not all that clean-cut. I had been around a lot.”
Nonetheless, with their clean-cut image — accurate or not — and a safer brand of folk music than that of the political-leaning protest-singers, the Kingston Trio went on to top the Billboard album chart five times within the span of two years.
The Kingston Trio was formed by three college students in the San Francisco area in 1957. Bob Shane and Reynolds attended Menlo College, while Dave Guard studied at nearby Stanford University. At first, the Trio performed at the campus beer gardens, singing Hawaiian songs and covers of tunes by Harry Belafonte and the Weavers. Those gigs landed the group a spot at the Purple Onion, a renowned San Francisco night spot. “We packed the place every night, six nights a week for approximately eight months,” Reynolds recalls.
Word of the Trio spread to the Capitol tower in Hollywood. The label promptly sent out a talent scout to catch the phenomenon and the group was more than happy to sign with the label. “We were thrilled,” recalls Reynolds. “The thought of giving my mother an album with my picture on cover, what more can you do in life?”
The Kingston Trio was recorded in a mere two days during February 1958. “We started in the afternoon,” recalls Reynolds. “One of the first songs we did was ‘Tom Dooley.'” That song, about a convicted murderer named Tom Dula, became a Number One hit for the Trio on November 17, 1958, helping to push the group’s self-titled debut album to the top of the chart.
“We learned ‘Tom Dooley’ at the Purple Onion from someone who was auditioning,” Reynolds recalls. “Every Tuesday they had an audition afternoon and some guy played [the song]. We asked him if he would teach it to us. We sat around and had a beer and he showed it to us. We arranged it in the dressing room that night.”
Following the album’s release on June 1, 1958, two disc jockeys at KLUB in Salt Lake City started playing the song, although it had not been released as a single. “People started going crazy for that song,” Reynolds recalls. Eventually, the Trio racked up five songs in the top 10 in Salt Lake City, and “Tom Dooley” spread to other cities, prompting Capitol to issue the single.
The Trio concentrated on obscure traditional material or songs written by such folk pioneers as Woody Guthrie, whose “Hard, Ain’t It Hard” was covered on the album. Some songs, including “Scotch and Soda,” were passed on to the Trio by friends. According to Reynolds, Guard learned “Scotch and Soda” from the Seavers, not the Weavers. Guard was dating the older sister of Tom Seaver, who would later go on to stardom as a major league baseball player. Seaver’s parents taught him the tune during a visit the family’s Fresno, California, home.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of November 24, 1958
1. The Kingston Trio, The Kingston Trio
2. South Pacific, Soundtrack
3. My Fair Lady, Original Cast
4. Sing Along With Mitch, Mitch Miller
5. Only the Lonely, Frank Sinatra