The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the 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. It rose to international popularity fueled by unprecedented sales of LP records and helped alter the direction of popular music in the U.S.
The Kingston Trio's original lineup: Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds (spring 1957)
The Kingston Trio's second troupe after Guard's departure: John Stewart, Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane (Summer 1963)
The 1981 Reunion Concert: Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane, Dave Guard
The Kingston Trio in 2003: George Grove, Bob Shane, Bobby Haworth (bassist Paul Gabrielson).
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed, Paul Robeson, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had in earlier times contributed to the development of country and western, blues, jazz, and rock and roll music.
Singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie emerged from the dust bowl of Oklahoma and the Great Depression in the mid-20th century, with lyrics that embraced his views on ecology, poverty, and unionization, paired with melody reflecting the many genres of American folk music.
Pete Seeger entertaining Eleanor Roosevelt, honored guest at a racially integrated Valentine's Day party marking the opening of a canteen for the United Federal Workers of America, a trade union representing federal employees, in then-segregated Washington, D.C. Photographed by Joseph Horne for the Office of War Information, 1944.
The Kingston Trio in 1958
Woody Guthrie in 1943