Ain't That a Shane -- founding KINGSTON TRIO member, Bob Shane, 85

DID HE EVER RETURN, NO HE NEVER RETURNED. Definitely not now.

Bob Schoen was a founding member of The Kingston Trio. The last of the line. He died the other day at age 85.

The group didn’t form in Kingston, Jamaica. It happened in Hawaii, where Punahou School by Bob met obstreperous little Dave Guard. They attended college in California, and met up with Nick Reynolds. The rest…is pretty damn lucky.

It seemed they clicked almost from the start. The folk revival was on, but these college boys slicked it up, getting even more commercial than The Weavers. Folk purists were pissed, but “Tom Dooley” was a golden shower…a Top Ten hit. Perhaps it benefitted by teenagers’ fetish for “death songs” and “Teen Angel” and the rest of it. “Hang down your head Tom Dooley…poor boy you’re bound to DIE.” Well, yes, Tom was another fuckin Mack the Knife. No finger-snappin’ from Bobby Darin for the Trio. They harmonized the horrors. Later on, somebody or other whined that “Tom Dooley” was “Tom Dula,” and somehow the song was NOT in public domain and they wanted a cut. OK, pass the knife.

Another oddball hit for the Trio was “The MTA Song.” This was an adaptation of an actual politician’s song. Based in part on public domain folk songs, it was re-written a bit by two women, and it was performed on trucks around Boston. The politician (who lost badly) ran with the promise of doing away with the weird fare increase and zoning rules. The song was first recorded by a guy I knew, Will Holt, but Coral Records got into a panic when he used the actual name of the politician. They went back and awkwardly spliced out the name.

Holt may have missed out on “The MTA Song,” but he sound an obscure Latin-tinged tune that he liked, wrote English lyrics for it, and “Lemon Tree” became a hit for Trini Lopez. (Not to be confused with Latrini Lopez, who was a mens room attendant at The Bitter End.)

Meanwhile, The Kingston Trio decided to cover Will’s version, jazz it up with their jaunty harmonies, and switch the name to the fictitious ‘George O’Brien.’ And they had a huge hit. It as SUCH A HUGE HIT…that people accepted this silly novelty song despite all logic. Charlie would “ever return no he’ll never return” because he couldn’t pay a nickel to get off the train? But his wife goes down to the station and throws him a sandwich every day? Doesn’t put a NICKEL in it? And Charlie hasn’t filled the train with piss and shit?

Oh, that Kingston Trio. They were charmers. I preferred the Ivy League Trio, and soon Peter Paul and Mary came along with better harmonies, but these guys remained popular till folk music was replaced by folk rock. And speaking of replacements, the first to step off the gravy train was Davy. Dave Guard stomped away to form the Whiskeyhill Singers, and he did have a great idea in having a WOMAN front the band. This was Judy Henske, the Queen of the Beatniks, and a woman who could sing the blues better than Janis, do comedy, and perform every type of hipster folk or rock that an audience might want. Naturally, the group flopped after one album on Capitol. Judy went on to a solo career. The Trio went on, too, with John Stewart, who had been in The Cumberland Three. Stewart and the Trio ambled and rambled from 1961 to 1967. Stewart had a good long solo career and also had hits as a songwriter (including the Monkees’ stupid “Daydream Believer”).

There was a “New Kingston Trio” and then, returning to being “The Kingston Trio,” the line-up was still anchored to founder Bob Shane, with George Grove one of the more long-lasting of the revolving door others. Nick Reynolds even made a return in the 80’s for a while, and so did another former member, Bill Zorn, when Bob Shane finally had to retire in 2004 due to a heart condition. I’m not sure if Zorn and Grove are still out there with some third stooge, calling themselves The Kingston Trio, and I really don’t care.

Their great years were with Shane and then with Stewart, and probably a dozen or two songs in their prestigious catalog are still worth listening to once in a while. But Shane, Stewart, Guard…will they ever return? No, they’ll … well, to quote Zevon, “reincarnation? Maybe that stuff’s true…”