Release Date: 1/01/1991
Recording Date: 1/1965
Tracks: 14
Length: 00:38:03 Hrs
Label: Folk Era
Type: CS,CD
- Genre/Styles
- Folk-Pop
Album Tracks (14)
Currently 0.0 / 5.0 Stars
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What the Critics Say
The Kingston Trio spent their most influential years, 1958-64, on Capitol Records and, in fact, even many fans may not realize that they subsequently jumped to Decca Records for the final three years of the original group's history. This, their Decca debut, demonstrates that their abilities were undiminished amid the British Invasion. Indeed, The Kingston Trio (or Nick-Bob-John, as it's also titled), is one of the strongest albums of the group's entire history, containing an embarrassment of riches among its original dozen songs. And it's also a surprisingly contemporary record for a group that was supposedly long past its prime in 1965 -- not only do they do well by Bob Dylan's "Farewell (Fare Thee Well My Own True Love)," proving that there were ways to harmonize his music beyond what Peter, Paul & Mary or the Byrds were doing, and make it work, but they throw 103 percent into Tom Paxton's "My Ramblin' Boy." And for those who grew up on Judy Collins' lovely but very female angst-ridden version of Ian Tyson's cowboy/drifter/roughneck romantic ballad "Someday Soon," they restore the song to its fundamentally masculine origins, pumping up the tempo in the process. Rod McKuen's "Love's Been Good to Me" joins a long list of hauntingly gorgeous Kingston Trio album tracks, alongside pieces such as "Take Her Out of Pity." The Trio reaches out to their older contemporary Fred Hellerman of the Weavers for the wry, bitter topical piece "Poverty Hill," and their version of Martin Cooper's "Little Play Soldiers" shows how thoroughly they were engaged in the anti-war politics of the period. They also proved that the traditional Trio approach, applied to Leadbelly's "Midnight Special," still had something to offer in 1965, much as it did in 1958; Jonathan Harris' "Love Comes a Trickling Down" is the great lost single (among several candidates) from this LP, a gorgeous gospel-flavored piece with a melody that, in the most beautiful way possible, never quite resolves itself; and they closed the original album with one of their greatest songs ever, "I'm Going Home," an upbeat, modern answer to pieces such as "This Land Is Your Land" and "Pastures of Plenty." The original Decca LP was superb but a little flat-sounding compared with the group's prior work at Capitol's studios -- when Folk Era reissued this and the Trio's other Decca albums in the 1990s, they brought the tapes to Capitol and added the little audio touches that made all of the group's prior work sound so crisp and sharp. The CD has two bonus tracks that make this even more essential listening, Mason Williams' beautiful "Long Time Blues" and John Stewart's introspective "Come Gather the Time." ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
