Thursday, September 16, 2010

Kingston Trio Part 2

String Along was released in 1960. It was their fifth studio album in a row to reach number one on the Billboard charts and remained there for ten weeks. It was the last LP of the Trio to reach the number one spot. Two singles, Bad Man Blunder and Everglades were released. Both were the last singles of the Guard years Trio to chart. Sold Out was released in 1960.

It was their third LP to reach #1, stayed there for twelve weeks, and received a gold certification the same year. El Matador was its lead-off single, though it just made the Top 40. Sold Out remained in the Top 40 for 54 weeks, longer than any Trio album. The version of Raspberries, Strawberries included is a remake of the Trio's follow-up single to Tom Dooley. The Last Month of the Year is
considered the Kingston Trio's most musically ambitious and also one of the their least known. It was recorded in 1960. Nick Reynolds stated in an interview: "It wasn't your standard Christmas album. That's why we called it The Last Month of the Year. It was a pretty complicated little album, some very intricate stuff. Dave Guard brought in a lot of the arrangements with stuff like bouzouki instrumentation. David Wheat, the trio's bassist, played some wonderful guitar. We really worked hard on that one, laying down a lot of the instrumental tracks before we did the vocals, working on harmonies over and over. David was responsible for a lot of that album, but we all brought things in. Musically, it came off very well; it just didn't sell."
Make Way is the ninth album by the Kingston Trio, released in 1961. It reached number two on the Billboard charts, despite there being no US singles released from the album. En El Agua was released as a B-side in the US but as an A-side in Great Britain. Goin' Places was their tenth album, released in 1961. It peaked at number three on the Billboard charts and spent 41 weeks in the Top 40. The lead-off single
was You're Gonna Miss Me, a new arrangement of Frankie and Johnny.It's B-side was En El Agua. Goin' Places was the last album recorded with Dave Guard as a member.
The day after the completion of the Goin' Places recording sessions, the Trio embarked on their first foreign tour. After their return, Guard announced his intention to resign from the group. Guard stated in numerous interviews he left the Trio for two main reasons: He was upset with a discrepancy in publishing royalties and he felt the Trio needed to grow musically. The other members, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, disagreed on both counts. Guard stayed on to fulfill the group's concert commitments through November and Reynolds and Shane, having decided to keep the group going, hired John Stewart as Guard's replacement.
Guard later formed the Whiskeyhill Singers, which disbanded after one Capitol album and virtually no success. In an interview for Frets magazine in 1984 Reynolds stated: "Basically, David wanted to take it on to another level. Bobby and I were just hangin' out, having a good time. We were happy with the format and working way too hard to consider sitting down and learning how to read music... We were killing ourselves as it was with the work, and David was insisting that we take lessons. He was also upset about the publishing thing, and didn't think people were taking care of business, and he became dissatisfied with everything from photography to the management. It might have been an overreaction on Dave's part, but I believe that he honestly wanted to take it to a higher plane..."

Friday, August 27, 2010

Kingston Trio Part 1

The Kingston Trio was organized in spring 1957 by Dave Guard( died March 22, 1991), Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds (died October 1, 2008). In the history of popular music, there are a relative handful of performers who have redefined the content of the music at critical points in history, people whose music left the landscape, and definition of popular music, altered completely. The Kingston Trio were one such group, transforming folk music into a hot commodity and creating a demand that none had existed before.

1958 Kingston Trio
1959 From The Hungry I






1959 Stereo Concert Plus
1959 At Large






1959 Here We Go Again
1959 Live From Newport





The group's first selftitled album was recorded over a three day period in February 1958 and released in June the same year just as the Trio was beginning its engagement at the Hungry I. The song selections reflected the repertoire that the musicians had been working on for two years—re-imagined traditional songs, calypso-flavored tunes, and a mix of both foreign language and contemporary songwriter numbers. The album sold moderately well, including on-site sales at the Hungry I during the Kingston Trio's engagement there through the summer, but it was DJ Paul Colburn at station KLUB in Salt Lake City whose enthusiasm for a single cut on the record spurred the next development in the group's history. Colburn began playing Tom Dooley extensively on his show, prompting a rush of album sales in the Salt Lake area by fans who wanted to listen to the song, as yet unavailable as a single record. Colburn called other DJs around the country urging them to do the same, and national response to the song was so strong that a reluctant Capitol Records finally released the tune as a 45rpm single on August 8, 1958; it reached the #1 spot on the Billboard chart by late November, sold a million copies by Christmas, and was awarded on January 21, 1959. Tom Dooley also spurred the debut album to a #1 position on the charts (the first album by a group to reach the top spot), earned the band a gold record for the album, and remained charted on Billboard's weekly reports for 195 weeks. The success of the album and the single earned the Kingston Trio a Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance at the awards' inaugural ceremony in 1959. At the time, no folk music category existed in the Grammy's scheme. The next year, largely as a result of the Kingston Trio and Tom Dooley, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences instituted a folk category and the Trio won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for its second studio album At Large. This was the beginning of a remarkable three year run for the Trio in which their first five studio albums achieved #1 chart status and gold records and by 1961 had earned more than $25 million for Capitol, roughly $180 million in 2010. Notably, the Kingston Trio was responsible for 15% of Capitol's total sales when Capitol also recorded Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole; both artists were also producing high-charting profitable albums. One indication of the Kingston Trio's popularity during this era was that for five consecutive weeks in November and December of 1959, four Kingston Trio albums ranked in the top ten of Billboard Magazine's Top LPs chart,an accomplishment unmatched by any artist before or since. The Trio also charted several single records during this time, made numerous television appearances, and played upwards of 200 engagements per year.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Reupload: Labyrinth - Labyrinth

Cornelis Johannes Zuiderwijk is a Dutch drummer. He is best known as the drummer of the rockband Golden Earring.
1985's Labyrinth is a pretty rare cd. Cesar Zuiderwijk participated in this one-time jazz project with jazz keyboarder Jasper van't Hof and singer Julya Loko.
This one is still dedicated to our Dutch friends out there.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Reupload: Jane - Live in Dortmund 2006

Jane's Live in Dortmund 2006 transmitted on Krautrock Radio on 04.07.2007 as a memorium for Jane drummer and vocalist Peter Panka. Plus four unplugged bonus tracks. It was first released on the blog Out Of Focus, gone lomg ago.

Smith Perkins Smith - Smith Perkins Smith

Wayne Perkins (born 1951, David Wayne Perkins in Birmingham, Alabama) is a rock and R & B guitarist, singer, songwriter and session musician. At age 15, Perkins played his first gig as a session musician, in Bob Grove's Prestige Recording Studio in Birmingham. At 16, he left school and started performing in local bands and released singles with a band called the Vikings with Charles Nettles.
In 1968, drummer Jasper Guarino helped Perkins land a steady job as a session guitarist in a studio owned by Quin Ivy called "Quinvy's" in Muscle Shoals. This led to work at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
Wayne left session work to form a band called Smith, Perkins and Smith which recorded two albums. While in Kingston in the Island Basing Street recording studios Perkins had been working on a second Smith Perkins Smith album for Island when Chris Blackwell stopped him. When Perkins returned to the United States, he played with Leon Russell for two years, in the Gap Band and with Eric Clapton and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Following this, Wayne joined the Alabama Power Band (formed by his brother Dale), which became Crimson Tide and recorded two albums. In Nashville, Wayne wrote music for Catdaddy Music and composed soundtracks for films including The Karate Kid, Part II and Back to School. Perkins later formed the band Problem Child with Robert Nix and Rick Christian, and played bass with Lonnie Mack.
In 1995, Perkins recorded his first solo album, Mendo Hotel, and in 2005, he released Ramblin' Heart.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Thorns


The Thorns were a project by Matthew Sweet,Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge.
The following musicians were also playing on this CD.:
Jim Keltner,Greg Leisz,Brendan O'Brien, and Roy Bittan.
The cd was produced and mixed by Brendan O'Brien.