Members of the Kingston Trio all say they avoid political messages in their songs.
But their music and the musicians the group launched the youth counterculture of 1960s. Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and The Eagles all credit the Trio as their musical inspiration.
The Kingston Trio played to a crowd of about 600 at the Haugh Performing Arts Center on Oct. 7.
“We try to stay away from it, but as I say in the show, all songs are political,” member Mike Marvin said. “Even love songs are political.”
The song that catapulted the Kingston Trio to national fame is about treacherous lover “Tom Dooley.”
The North Carolinian folk ballad was popular in that state for generations before the Trio added powerful acapella to its cover.
“Tom Dooley” was composed after a former confederate soldier, Tom Dula was hanged in 1868 for stabbing his fiance to death.
Historians speculate that Dula’s jealous lover was the murderer.
A chivalrous honor code may have prevented him from implicating his lover, though he protested his innocence on the gallows.
Though none of the founding members of the Kingston Trio perform (two of whom are dead), the acoustic folk group has not changed its act much since it started touring 60 years ago. The band still plays into a shared mic. It was the first folk act to rise to the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top 40 in 1958.
Trio member Tim Gorelangton said when the group won a 1959 Best Country and Western Grammy, people did not know how to classify the music.
Folk music takes its name from the folklore tales that inspire many of its lyrics. Performers like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger pioneered folk music’s oratory, which the Trio references and imitates throughout its show.
Marvin is the group’s unofficial emcee. He is adopted son of Trio founder Nick Reynolds. His band mates playfully heckle him in between performances.
“You know, there’s no crocodiles in the everglades,” Marvin said on stage. “In fact there’s no crocodiles anywhere in North America, except for the ones that live in Washington D.C.”
Trio members all said they are trying to keep folk music’s flame burning.
“There are a lot of groups beautifully carrying on the tradition,” Marvin said.
He cited the contemporary band Mumford and Sons as a group vying for folk’s top spot.
“With folk music now more than ever is a time when people need to remember these stories,” Marvin said. “Especially with digital, there’s not a lot of people going out and saying here’s a song I wrote.”
Gorelangton said he wished they attracted a younger audience. The crowd was mostly white-haired seniors.
Attendee Fran Banta said she remembers seeing the original band play in San Diego in 1962. Banta, who is 77 years old, said she wasn’t yet 21.
“They may have new members, but they don’t sound any different,” Banta said.
The group’s tunes and lyrics moved their audience to shake, dance, laugh and sing along
“I think the whole business of singing together is human nature,” Gorelangton said. “We sat around camp fires and in caves singing.”
The Trio’s bold choruses assert the dominance of community, story and music in a material world.
“I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar,” the Trio sang. “Spend it fast as I can. For a whaling song and a good guitar…The only things that I understand.”
