The Kingston Trio: The Guard Years is a compilation 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...

's recordings when 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....

 was a member of the Trio along with Bob Shane

Bob Shane

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...

 and 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...

.

The Guard Years is a 10-CD box set and was released in 1997. It contains 240 songs, 17 of them are previously unissued live tracks from 1958-59. The set included a 108-page hardcover book containing photos and stories of the group, recording sessions, and notes on the songs. All the albums were originally released on 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...

 from 1958 to 1961, the year Guard left the group and formed the Whiskeyhill Singers

Whiskeyhill Singers

The Whiskeyhill Singers were formed in early 1961 by Dave Guard after he left The Kingston Trio. Guard formed the Singers as an attempt to return to the Trio's earlier roots in folk music. The Singers lasted about six months before disbanding...

 with former Trio bassist David "Buck" Wheat.

Reception

Allmusic critic Bruce Eder feels that while a daunting collection of 240 songs, the box set best shows the development of the Trio. "The fact that nine of these ten discs contain material intended for release over a period of just four years is an indicator of the demand for their music — the Kingston Trio was the first popular act whose albums outsold their singles, and the result was 200 songs cut in just four years. That may be more Kingston Trio than most fans feel they need, but not more than can stand the test of listening... Showing off the range of their repertory, they draw on influences from blues to Broadway, with detours into the work of Ray Charles and Uncle Dave Macon, as well as Woody Guthrie and Lee Hayes... The box is daunting in its scope, as is the book, whose separate song histories are a welcome addition to the usual sessionography."

Personnel

• 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....
  
   – vocals, banjo, guitar, bouzouki
• Bob Shane
  Bob Shane
  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...
  
   – vocals, guitar, banjo
• 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...
  
   – vocals, tenor guitar, bongos, conga
• David "Buck" Wheat – bass, guitar
• Buzz Wheeler – bass
• Mongo Santamaria – percussion, conga
• Jack Sperling – drums
• Les Bennetts – guitar
• J.D. Crowe – bajo sexto
• Lonnie Donegan
  Lonnie Donegan
  Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
  
   – guitar, vocals
• Eddie Duran – guitar
• William Correa – timbales
• G. B. Grayson
  G. B. Grayson
  Gilliam Banmon Grayson was an American Old-time fiddle player and singer. Mostly blind from infancy, Grayson is chiefly remembered for a series of sides recorded with guitarist Henry Whitter between 1927 and 1930 that would later influence numerous country, bluegrass, and rock musicians...
  
   – fiddle, vocals
• Merle Kilgore – vocals
• Henry Whitter
  Henry Whitter
  Henry Whitter was an early country musician.-Biography:...
  
   – guitar, vocals

Production notes

• 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...
  
  – producer
• Paul Surratt – reissue producer, photography, illustrations
• Richard Weize – reissue producer, tape research, discography
• Charles K. Wolfe – liner notes
• Bob Jones – mastering, transfers
• Jurgen Crasser – mastering
• Jay Ranellucci – mixing
• Ben Blake – song notes
• Bill Bush – liner notes, biographical information
• Jürgen Feuss – photography, illustrations
• Otto Kitsinger – photography, illustrations
• R.A. Andreas – photography, illustrations
• Brad Benedict – photography, illustrations
• Dave Samuelson – liner notes, discography
• Sylke Holtrop – artwork, illustrations
• Wolfgang Taubenauer – artwork
• Phil Wells – tape comparison, discography

External links

• The Kingston Trio Liner Notes