Bob Shane
Encyclopedia
Bob Shane is an American
singer and guitarist
and, with Nick Reynolds
' passing in October 2008, the only surviving founding member of The Kingston Trio
. In that capacity, Shane became a seminal figure in the revival of folk and other acoustic music as a popular art form in the U.S. in the late 1950s through the mid 1960s.
The success of the Kingston Trio in its heyday had repercussions far beyond its unprecedented album sales (including the unsurpassed four albums simultaneously in the Top 10 in 1959), its host of imitators, and the relatively short-lived pop-folk boom it created. For the Kingston Trio's success took acoustic folk-based music out of the niche market it had occupied prior to the Trio's arrival and moved it into the mainstream of American popular music, opening the door for major record labels to record and market both more traditional folk musicians and singer-songwriters as well.
During these years, Shane (the phonetic spelling he has used since 1957) taught himself to play first ukulele and then guitar, influenced especially by Hawaiian slack key guitarists like Gabby Pahinui
. It was also during these years that Shane met Punahou classmate Dave Guard
and began performing with him at parties and school variety shows.
Following graduation in 1952, Shane attended Menlo College
in Menlo Park, California
while Guard matriculated at nearby Stanford University
. At Menlo, Shane met and became fast friends with Nick Reynolds
, originally from the San Diego area and also a musician and singer with a broad knowledge of folk and popular songs, due in part to Reynolds' music-loving father, a captain in the Navy. Shane introduced Reynolds to Guard, and in 1956, the three began performing together as part of an informal aggregation that could, according to Reynolds, expand to as large as six or seven members. The group went under different names, most often as "Dave Guard and the Calypsonians." They made little more than beer money and had no formal professional aspirations, so by the end of that year and following his graduation from Menlo College Shane had returned to Hawaii to work in the family business.
However, Shane had discovered a natural affinity for entertaining and at night pursued a solo career in Hawaii, including engagements at some of Waikiki's major hotels. Shane's act consisted of an eclectic mix of songs from Elvis Presley
, Hank Williams, Harry Belafonte
, and Broadway shows. It was during this period of several months that Shane also met acoustic blues legend Josh White
, who helped Shane refine his guitar style and influenced him to support his vocals with a Martin "Dreadnought" guitar, significant in that it led to Shane's life-long association with that guitar maker. C.F. Martin & Co. reciprocated by issuing a number of "signature" models honoring Shane and the Kingston Trio in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
At the same time back in California, Guard and Reynolds had organized themselves somewhat more formally into an act named "The Kingston Quartet" with bassist Joe Gannon
and his fianceé, vocalist Barbara Bogue. This group appeared for a one night engagement at a club called the Italian Village in San Francisco, to which they invited publicist Frank Werber, who had caught the Calypsonians' act with Shane some months earlier at the Cracked Pot beer garden in Palo Alto. Werber was impressed by the natural talent of and synergy between Guard and Reynolds; he was less impressed with Gannon and Bogue, and suggested to Reynolds and Guard that they would be better off as a trio without Gannon - easier to book and better musically. When Guard and Reynolds let Gannon go and Bogue followed, Reynolds, Guard and Werber all considered Shane the logical third member and asked him to return to California, which he did in the spring of 1957.
Shane, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber drew up an informal agreement (on a paper napkin, according to a legend that Werber has debunked) that morphed into a legal partnership. They decided on the name "Kingston Trio" because it evoked, they thought, both the then-popular calypso music that emanated from Kingston, Jamaica
as well as the kind of "collegiate" ambiance suggested by their quickly adopted stage outfit of matching button-down collared three-quarter length sleeved striped shirts.
Under Werber's rigorous tutelage, Shane, Guard, and Reynolds began almost daily rehearsals for several months, including instruction from prominent San Francisco vocal coach Judy Davis. The group's first significant break came in the summer of 1957 when comedienne Phyllis Diller
had to cancel an engagement at The Purple Onion
, a small San Francisco night club, and Werber talked the management into hiring the untested trio for a week. The trio's close harmonies, varied repertoire, and carefully rehearsed but apparently spontaneous on stage humor made them an instant success with the club's patrons, and the engagement stretched to six months.
During this stint, Werber used the Kingston Trio's local popularity to try to generate interest from record companies. After several false starts, the group landed a contract with Capitol Records
, recording their first album in three days in February 1958. The producer was the already legendary (from Frank Sinatra's 1950s Capitol sessions) Voyle Gilmore
, who made two immediate and fateful decisions. Gilmore insisted that the trio's acoustic sound have more of a "bottom" and added a bass player to the recordings. He also decided that the group should be recorded without additional orchestral instrumentation, unusual for the time; both decisions came to characterize nearly all of the Kingston Trio's subsequent recordings and live performances.
The album The Kingston Trio
was released in June 1958 at the same time that the group was beginning a long engagement at San Francisco's more prominent Hungry i
night club. The album included the number that became Shane's signature song, "Scotch and Soda," powerful and rhythmic guitar work from Shane throughout, and an obscure North Carolina murder ballad, "Tom Dooley
" on which Shane sang the lead.
In the summer of 1958 while Shane and the Trio were performing at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, disc jockey Paul Colburn in Salt Lake City, then others in Miami and nationally began playing the "Tom Dooley" cut from the album on the air. Popular response forced a reluctant Capitol Records marketing department to release the song as a single on August 8, 1958. It shot to #1 on the Billboard and Variety charts, selling a million copies before Christmas of 1958 and earning the Kingston Trio both its first of eight gold records and of two Grammys.
This ushered in an era of remarkable success as both a recording and performing act for Shane and the Trio. In 1959 alone, the group released four albums, three of which attained #1 status and all four of which were in Billboard's Top Ten in December 1959, a feat equaled only by the Beatles. Thirteen of their albums placed in Billboard's Top Ten, with five going to #1 and the first album remaining on the charts for 195 weeks. A half dozen singles charted in the Top 100 as well. The group played over two hundred dates per year for several years, pioneering the college concert circuit and appearing at most of the country's top night clubs, festivals, and amphitheaters as well.
It was during this period, however, that conflict began to simmer between high school friends Shane and Guard. Disputes over the musical direction of the Kingston Trio and disagreement over finances and copyrights are the causes most frequently cited in Guard's decision in the spring of 1961 to leave what was at the time the most popular group in American music. Shane, Reynolds, and Werber bought out Guard's interest in the partnership and moved quickly to find a replacement, settling on John Stewart, a young folk performer and composer who had written a number of songs that the Trio had already recorded. The Shane, Reynolds, and Stewart Kingston Trio remained together for another six years, releasing nine more albums on Capitol and scoring a number of Top 40 hit singles until diminishing record sales resulting from the passing of the popular folk boom and the rise of Capitol's other major acts the Beach Boys
and the Beatles
prompted the group to move to Decca Records
. They released four more albums before disbanding as an act following a final engagement at the Hungry i in June 1967.
" that later became a million-seller for Bobby Goldsboro
) and with different configurations with other folk-oriented performers.
In 1969, he asked permission of Reynolds and Werber, still his partners, to lease the group's name. They assented with the provisos that Shane assemble a group of comparable musical quality to the two original configurations and that "New" be appended to the name. Shane organized two troupes under the name of "The New Kingston Trio." The first consisted of guitarist Pat Horine and banjoist Jim Connor in addition to Shane and lasted from 1969 to 1973, the second including guitarist Roger Gambill and banjoist Bill Zorn from 1973 until 1976. Shane tried to create a repertoire for these groups that included both expected Kingston Trio standards like "Tom Dooley
" and "M.T.A." but also more contemporary songs, including country and novelty tunes. The attempt did not meet with any significant success. Though both of these groups made a limited number of recordings and television appearances, neither generated very much interest from fans or the public at large.
At the end of 1976, Bill Zorn wanted to pursue a solo career and left the group under amicable circumstances. To replace him, Shane found a younger performer named George Grove, an instrumentalist and singer. Shane realized that the group's greatest asset in addition to his vocals and his presence as a founding member was the name itself. Consequently, he purchased the rights to the Kingston Trio name outright from Reynolds and Werber, and all subsequent iterations of Shane's troupe since late 1976 have been known simply as the Kingston Trio.
In 1981, PBS producers JoAnn Young and Paul Surratt pitched an idea to Shane: a reunion concert that the network could use as a fund raiser and that would include not only Shane's current group but also on stage reunions of the two original Kingston Trio lineups with Guard and Stewart. Shane and the other principals assented, and the concert was staged and taped at the Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California in November 1981; it was broadcast over PBS stations in March 1982.
Despite some residual tension between Guard and Shane, part of which surfaced in a Wall Street Journal article by Roy Harris about the event and which resulted from public comments made by Guard that Shane felt disparaged both him and his current group, the concert was moderately successful and became a landmark in Kingston Trio history. Over the next nine years, Shane and Guard reconciled to a large degree. Guard was suffering from cancer though apparently in remission when Shane and Reynolds visited him in New Hampshire
in the summer of 1990, and the three discussed the possibility of a reunion tour that would again feature Shane's current troupe (which by this time included a re-invigorated Nick Reynolds) as well as Guard and Stewart. Guard's lymphoma returned, however, and he died in March 1991. Shane was the only member of any configuration of the Kingston Trio to sing at Guard's memorial service.
Through the years following Shane's acquisition of the Kingston Trio name in 1976, the personnel in the group changed several times, though Shane and Grove remained constants. Shane guided the group to a success that if never the equivalent of the group's first decade was nonetheless steady and consistent. Shane's Kingston Trio relied heavily on a "greatest hits formula" augmented by a number of other songs acquired through the years that fans had accepted as part of the group's repertoire.
In March 2004, a month after his 70th birthday, Shane suffered a debilitating heart attack that forced him into retirement from touring and performing after forty seven years with the act. Though Shane had initially planned to return to the group after convalescing, the attack was severe enough to warrant Shane's permanent withdrawal from performing with the group that he still owns. He was replaced by former New Kingston Trio member Bill Zorn.
Less often appreciated, however, were Shane's abilities as a guitarist and vocal interpreter. So pervasive was the Kingston Trio's influence and so thoroughly did its sound emanate from Shane's strong and rhythmic strumming that the multitude of folk performers who copied Shane's style had no idea that what appeared to be the most authentically mainland and traditional of sounds actually consisted of Shane's variations on rhythms he had picked up as a boy in Hawaii. Former Kingston Trio member John Stewart, himself a distinguished guitarist throughout his subsequent solo career, called Shane "the man of a thousand strums"
In addition to the Kingston Trio's hits and the abovementioned song "Honey," Shane also sang solos or leads on other songs first given national prominence by the Kingston Trio that later became hits for other performers, including "It Was a Very Good Year
" and "Love's Been Good To Me" by Frank Sinatra
,
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
" by Roberta Flack
, "Long Black Veil" by Johnny Cash and The Band, "Seasons in the Sun
" by Terry Jacks
, and a host of others including "Let's Get Together" and "Early Morning Rain
."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer and guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and, with Nick Reynolds
Nick Reynolds
Nick Reynolds was an American folk musician and recording artist. Reynolds was one of the founding members of The Kingston Trio, whose largely folk-based material captured international attention during the late fifties and early sixties.- Early life :Growing up in Coronado, California, his...
' passing in October 2008, the only surviving founding member of The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
. In that capacity, Shane became a seminal figure in the revival of folk and other acoustic music as a popular art form in the U.S. in the late 1950s through the mid 1960s.
The success of the Kingston Trio in its heyday had repercussions far beyond its unprecedented album sales (including the unsurpassed four albums simultaneously in the Top 10 in 1959), its host of imitators, and the relatively short-lived pop-folk boom it created. For the Kingston Trio's success took acoustic folk-based music out of the niche market it had occupied prior to the Trio's arrival and moved it into the mainstream of American popular music, opening the door for major record labels to record and market both more traditional folk musicians and singer-songwriters as well.
Early life
Shane was born to a well-established and prosperous family in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii; he is in his own words "a fourth-generation islander." He attended local schools, including the prestigious Punahou School for his junior high and high school years. Punahou's curriculum emphasized native Hawaiian culture, complementing Shane's already developing interest in music in general and Hawaiian music in particular.During these years, Shane (the phonetic spelling he has used since 1957) taught himself to play first ukulele and then guitar, influenced especially by Hawaiian slack key guitarists like Gabby Pahinui
Gabby Pahinui
Charles Philip "Gabby" or "Pops" Pahinui was a slack-key guitarist.Gabby was born Charles Kapono Kahahawaii Jr. and later hānai-ed into the Pahinui family as Charles Philip Pahinui and raised in the Kaka'ako area of Honolulu in the 1920s...
. It was also during these years that Shane met Punahou classmate Dave Guard
Dave Guard
Donald David "Dave" Guard was an American folk singer, songwriter, arranger and recording artist. Along with Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, he was one of the founding members of The Kingston Trio.Guard was educated in Honolulu, Hawaii, at Punahou School in what was then the pre-statehood U.S....
and began performing with him at parties and school variety shows.
Formation of The Kingston Trio
Menlo College
Menlo College, often referred to as Menlo, is a private, four-year baccalaureate college specializing in business located in the Silicon Valley town of Atherton, California.-Campus:...
in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
while Guard matriculated at nearby Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. At Menlo, Shane met and became fast friends with Nick Reynolds
Nick Reynolds
Nick Reynolds was an American folk musician and recording artist. Reynolds was one of the founding members of The Kingston Trio, whose largely folk-based material captured international attention during the late fifties and early sixties.- Early life :Growing up in Coronado, California, his...
, originally from the San Diego area and also a musician and singer with a broad knowledge of folk and popular songs, due in part to Reynolds' music-loving father, a captain in the Navy. Shane introduced Reynolds to Guard, and in 1956, the three began performing together as part of an informal aggregation that could, according to Reynolds, expand to as large as six or seven members. The group went under different names, most often as "Dave Guard and the Calypsonians." They made little more than beer money and had no formal professional aspirations, so by the end of that year and following his graduation from Menlo College Shane had returned to Hawaii to work in the family business.
However, Shane had discovered a natural affinity for entertaining and at night pursued a solo career in Hawaii, including engagements at some of Waikiki's major hotels. Shane's act consisted of an eclectic mix of songs from Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Hank Williams, Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, and Broadway shows. It was during this period of several months that Shane also met acoustic blues legend Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
, who helped Shane refine his guitar style and influenced him to support his vocals with a Martin "Dreadnought" guitar, significant in that it led to Shane's life-long association with that guitar maker. C.F. Martin & Co. reciprocated by issuing a number of "signature" models honoring Shane and the Kingston Trio in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
At the same time back in California, Guard and Reynolds had organized themselves somewhat more formally into an act named "The Kingston Quartet" with bassist Joe Gannon
Joe Gannon
Joe Gannon is a Philadelphia native, recording producer, director, musical stage lighting and production designer. Gannon operated and managed Frank Zappa’s record company and produced records for CBS. He worked as road manager for Bill Cosby and staged Madonna's first film appearance...
and his fianceé, vocalist Barbara Bogue. This group appeared for a one night engagement at a club called the Italian Village in San Francisco, to which they invited publicist Frank Werber, who had caught the Calypsonians' act with Shane some months earlier at the Cracked Pot beer garden in Palo Alto. Werber was impressed by the natural talent of and synergy between Guard and Reynolds; he was less impressed with Gannon and Bogue, and suggested to Reynolds and Guard that they would be better off as a trio without Gannon - easier to book and better musically. When Guard and Reynolds let Gannon go and Bogue followed, Reynolds, Guard and Werber all considered Shane the logical third member and asked him to return to California, which he did in the spring of 1957.
Shane, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber drew up an informal agreement (on a paper napkin, according to a legend that Werber has debunked) that morphed into a legal partnership. They decided on the name "Kingston Trio" because it evoked, they thought, both the then-popular calypso music that emanated from Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
as well as the kind of "collegiate" ambiance suggested by their quickly adopted stage outfit of matching button-down collared three-quarter length sleeved striped shirts.
The Kingston Trio: The Peak Years, 1957-1967
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
had to cancel an engagement at The Purple Onion
The Purple Onion
The Purple Onion is a celebrated cellar club in the North Beach area of San Francisco, California located at 140 Columbus Avenue...
, a small San Francisco night club, and Werber talked the management into hiring the untested trio for a week. The trio's close harmonies, varied repertoire, and carefully rehearsed but apparently spontaneous on stage humor made them an instant success with the club's patrons, and the engagement stretched to six months.
During this stint, Werber used the Kingston Trio's local popularity to try to generate interest from record companies. After several false starts, the group landed a contract with Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, recording their first album in three days in February 1958. The producer was the already legendary (from Frank Sinatra's 1950s Capitol sessions) Voyle Gilmore
Voyle Gilmore
Voyle Gilmore was an American record producer and arranger. He was best known for his work with Frank Sinatra and The Kingston Trio on Capitol Records...
, who made two immediate and fateful decisions. Gilmore insisted that the trio's acoustic sound have more of a "bottom" and added a bass player to the recordings. He also decided that the group should be recorded without additional orchestral instrumentation, unusual for the time; both decisions came to characterize nearly all of the Kingston Trio's subsequent recordings and live performances.
The album The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio (album)
The Kingston Trio is The Kingston Trio's debut album, released in 1958 . It entered the album charts in late October 1958, where it resided for nearly four years, spending one week at #1 in early 1959...
was released in June 1958 at the same time that the group was beginning a long engagement at San Francisco's more prominent Hungry i
Hungry i
The hungry i was originally a nightclub in North Beach, San Francisco. It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold it to Enrico Banducci in 1950.-The name:How the club's name came about is something of a mystery...
night club. The album included the number that became Shane's signature song, "Scotch and Soda," powerful and rhythmic guitar work from Shane throughout, and an obscure North Carolina murder ballad, "Tom Dooley
Tom Dooley (song)
"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina. It is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio. This version was a multi-format hit, reaching #1 in Billboard, the...
" on which Shane sang the lead.
In the summer of 1958 while Shane and the Trio were performing at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, disc jockey Paul Colburn in Salt Lake City, then others in Miami and nationally began playing the "Tom Dooley" cut from the album on the air. Popular response forced a reluctant Capitol Records marketing department to release the song as a single on August 8, 1958. It shot to #1 on the Billboard and Variety charts, selling a million copies before Christmas of 1958 and earning the Kingston Trio both its first of eight gold records and of two Grammys.
This ushered in an era of remarkable success as both a recording and performing act for Shane and the Trio. In 1959 alone, the group released four albums, three of which attained #1 status and all four of which were in Billboard's Top Ten in December 1959, a feat equaled only by the Beatles. Thirteen of their albums placed in Billboard's Top Ten, with five going to #1 and the first album remaining on the charts for 195 weeks. A half dozen singles charted in the Top 100 as well. The group played over two hundred dates per year for several years, pioneering the college concert circuit and appearing at most of the country's top night clubs, festivals, and amphitheaters as well.
It was during this period, however, that conflict began to simmer between high school friends Shane and Guard. Disputes over the musical direction of the Kingston Trio and disagreement over finances and copyrights are the causes most frequently cited in Guard's decision in the spring of 1961 to leave what was at the time the most popular group in American music. Shane, Reynolds, and Werber bought out Guard's interest in the partnership and moved quickly to find a replacement, settling on John Stewart, a young folk performer and composer who had written a number of songs that the Trio had already recorded. The Shane, Reynolds, and Stewart Kingston Trio remained together for another six years, releasing nine more albums on Capitol and scoring a number of Top 40 hit singles until diminishing record sales resulting from the passing of the popular folk boom and the rise of Capitol's other major acts the Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
and the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
prompted the group to move to Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. They released four more albums before disbanding as an act following a final engagement at the Hungry i in June 1967.
Solo efforts and The New Kingston Trio, 1969-1976
Shane had not been in favor of the break-up of the Kingston Trio, both because he felt that the Trio could adapt to changing musical tastes and because he had by then become a thoroughly accomplished entertainer and a canny marketer. Deciding to stay in the entertainment business, Shane experimented both with solo work (he recorded several singles, including a version of the song "HoneyHoney (Bobby Goldsboro song)
"Honey," also known as "Honey ," is a song written by Bobby Russell. He first produced it with former Kingston Trio member Bob Shane...
" that later became a million-seller for Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro is an American country and pop singer-songwriter. He had a string of Pop and Country hits during the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature #1 classic "Honey," which sold well over one million copies in the United States.-Early life:Goldsboro was born in Marianna, Florida...
) and with different configurations with other folk-oriented performers.
In 1969, he asked permission of Reynolds and Werber, still his partners, to lease the group's name. They assented with the provisos that Shane assemble a group of comparable musical quality to the two original configurations and that "New" be appended to the name. Shane organized two troupes under the name of "The New Kingston Trio." The first consisted of guitarist Pat Horine and banjoist Jim Connor in addition to Shane and lasted from 1969 to 1973, the second including guitarist Roger Gambill and banjoist Bill Zorn from 1973 until 1976. Shane tried to create a repertoire for these groups that included both expected Kingston Trio standards like "Tom Dooley
Tom Dooley (song)
"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina. It is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio. This version was a multi-format hit, reaching #1 in Billboard, the...
" and "M.T.A." but also more contemporary songs, including country and novelty tunes. The attempt did not meet with any significant success. Though both of these groups made a limited number of recordings and television appearances, neither generated very much interest from fans or the public at large.
Another Kingston Trio, A Reunion, A Retirement: 1976-2004
At the end of 1976, Bill Zorn wanted to pursue a solo career and left the group under amicable circumstances. To replace him, Shane found a younger performer named George Grove, an instrumentalist and singer. Shane realized that the group's greatest asset in addition to his vocals and his presence as a founding member was the name itself. Consequently, he purchased the rights to the Kingston Trio name outright from Reynolds and Werber, and all subsequent iterations of Shane's troupe since late 1976 have been known simply as the Kingston Trio.
In 1981, PBS producers JoAnn Young and Paul Surratt pitched an idea to Shane: a reunion concert that the network could use as a fund raiser and that would include not only Shane's current group but also on stage reunions of the two original Kingston Trio lineups with Guard and Stewart. Shane and the other principals assented, and the concert was staged and taped at the Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California in November 1981; it was broadcast over PBS stations in March 1982.
Despite some residual tension between Guard and Shane, part of which surfaced in a Wall Street Journal article by Roy Harris about the event and which resulted from public comments made by Guard that Shane felt disparaged both him and his current group, the concert was moderately successful and became a landmark in Kingston Trio history. Over the next nine years, Shane and Guard reconciled to a large degree. Guard was suffering from cancer though apparently in remission when Shane and Reynolds visited him in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
in the summer of 1990, and the three discussed the possibility of a reunion tour that would again feature Shane's current troupe (which by this time included a re-invigorated Nick Reynolds) as well as Guard and Stewart. Guard's lymphoma returned, however, and he died in March 1991. Shane was the only member of any configuration of the Kingston Trio to sing at Guard's memorial service.
Through the years following Shane's acquisition of the Kingston Trio name in 1976, the personnel in the group changed several times, though Shane and Grove remained constants. Shane guided the group to a success that if never the equivalent of the group's first decade was nonetheless steady and consistent. Shane's Kingston Trio relied heavily on a "greatest hits formula" augmented by a number of other songs acquired through the years that fans had accepted as part of the group's repertoire.
In March 2004, a month after his 70th birthday, Shane suffered a debilitating heart attack that forced him into retirement from touring and performing after forty seven years with the act. Though Shane had initially planned to return to the group after convalescing, the attack was severe enough to warrant Shane's permanent withdrawal from performing with the group that he still owns. He was replaced by former New Kingston Trio member Bill Zorn.
Musician
Shane's vocals and guitar work were the bedrock on which the Kingston Trio's sound was built. His powerful baritone with a natural vibrato has been called one of the best natural voices in American popular music.Less often appreciated, however, were Shane's abilities as a guitarist and vocal interpreter. So pervasive was the Kingston Trio's influence and so thoroughly did its sound emanate from Shane's strong and rhythmic strumming that the multitude of folk performers who copied Shane's style had no idea that what appeared to be the most authentically mainland and traditional of sounds actually consisted of Shane's variations on rhythms he had picked up as a boy in Hawaii. Former Kingston Trio member John Stewart, himself a distinguished guitarist throughout his subsequent solo career, called Shane "the man of a thousand strums"
In addition to the Kingston Trio's hits and the abovementioned song "Honey," Shane also sang solos or leads on other songs first given national prominence by the Kingston Trio that later became hits for other performers, including "It Was a Very Good Year
It Was a Very Good Year
"It Was a Very Good Year" is a song composed by Ervin Drake in 1961 for and originally recorded by Bob Shane of The Kingston Trio and subsequently made famous by Frank Sinatra's version in D-minor, which won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male in 1966. Gordon Jenkins was awarded...
" and "Love's Been Good To Me" by Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
,
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a 1957 folk song written by British political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who was later to become his wife. At the time the couple were lovers, although MacColl was married to someone else. MacColl and Seeger included the song in their...
" by Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...
, "Long Black Veil" by Johnny Cash and The Band, "Seasons in the Sun
Seasons in the Sun
Apart from the versions noted above, there have been numerous cover versions of the song. Generally, these use the same translation as the Terry Jacks version, and thus inherit that version's less harsh interpretation of the song's storyline....
" by Terry Jacks
Terry Jacks
Terrence Ross "Terry" Jacks is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer and environmentalist.-Early life:...
, and a host of others including "Let's Get Together" and "Early Morning Rain
Early Morning Rain
"Early Morning Rain" is a song composed and recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. The song appears on his debut album Lightfoot! and in a re-recorded version on the 1975 compilation Gord's Gold...
."
Family
Shane was married for 23 years to the former Louise Brandon. They have five children and 5 grand children, Jody Beale, Susan Gleeson (Tori, Olivia, Emma), Brandon Shane, Robin Shane, Jason Shane (Inman Davis, Glancy McCall). Since 2000, Shane has been married to Bobbie Childress.External links
- The Kingston Trio Official Page
- Autobiographical Notes on Bob Shane
- Martin Guitar Bob Shane Page
- Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Kingston Trio Page
- FolkEra Records Kingston Trio Page
- [ AllMusic Guide Kingston Trio Page]
- Folk U.S.A. - Archived vintage Kingston Trio audio and video clips.
- The Kingston Trio Place--A Kingston Trio Fan-Based Tribute Site