'''The Kingston Trio''' ist eine amerikanische Musikgruppe. Sie war in den 1960er Jahren sehr beliebt und war entscheidend am Revival des Weavers“ beeinflusst. Ihr erster Hit war ihre Version eines alten Volksliedes, Tom Dooley, wofür sie 1958 eine Goldene Schallplatte erhielten. Die Musik der Gruppe war unkompliziert und harmonisch. Noch im Jahre 2004 singt das Original-Mitglied Bob Shane zusammen mit George Grove und Bobby Haworth.

Das Kingston Trio spielt Musik aus verschiedensten Bereichen, darunter Folk (u.a. Songs von Woody Guthrie oder Bob Dylan), Country, Gospel und Musik mit lateinamerikanischen Einflüssen. Nicht wenige Lieder der Gruppe sind direkt oder indirekt politische Songs, die sowohl links-liberale, als auch eine patriotisch-US-amerikanische Einstellung offenbaren.

== Mitglieder ==
* ''Dave Guard'' (* 19. Oktober 1934 in Honolulu; † 22. März 1991 in Rollingsford, Northampton), beim Kingston Trio von 1957 bis 1961.
* ''Bob Shane'' (* 1. Februar 1934 in Hilo, Hawaii), beim Kingston Trio seit 1957.
* ''Nick Reynolds'' (* 27. Juli 1933 in Coronado, Kalifornien), beim Kingston Trio von 1957 bis 1967 und von 1988 bis 1999.
* ''John Stewart'' (* 5. September 1939 in San Diego, Kalifornien; † 19. Januar 2008 ebenda), beim Kingston Trio von 1961 bis 1967.
* ''George „Pat“ Horine'' (* 6. April 1945 in Lexington, Kentucky; † 4. August 2004 ebenda), beim Kingston Trio von 1969 bis 1972.
* ''Jim Connor'' (* 12. Juni 1938 in Gadsen, Atlanta), beim Kingston Trio von 1968 bis 1972.
* ''Roger Gambill'' (* 28. Juni 1942; † 20. März 1985), beim Kingston Trio von 1973 bis 1985.
* ''Bill Zorn'' (* 18. Mai 1948 in Bridgeport, Connecticut), beim Kingston Trio von 1973 bis 1976.
* ''George Grove'' (* 9. Oktober 1947 in Hickory, North Carolina), beim Kingston Trio seit 1976.
* ''Bob Haworth'' (* 9. Oktober 1946 in Spokane, Washington), beim Kingston Trio von 1985 bis 1988 und seit 1999.

== Songs ==
Einige der bekanntesten und erfolgreichsten Lieder waren:
* Tom Dooley (1958)
* Seasons in the Sun
* M.T.A. (1959)
* A Worried Man (1959)
* The Tijuana Jail (1959)
* Bad Man Blunder (1960)
* El Matador (1960)
* Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (1962)
* Desert Pete (1963)
* Greenback Dollar (1963)
* Reverend Mr. Black (1963)
* Scarlet Ribbons
* This Land is Your Land
* Lemon Tree
* Scotch and Soda
* The Long Black Veil
* The World Needs a Melody
* Raspberries, Strawberries
* 500 Miles
* Ballad of the Shape of Things
* Reuben James
* Guantanamera
* Puff the magic Dragon
* Sloop John B
* Whiskey in the Jar
* It was a very good Year
* Molly Malone
* Shenandoah
* Call The Wind Maria
* Michael Row Your Boat Ashore

thumb|right|The Kingston Trio's original lineup: [[Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds]]
'''The Kingston Trio''' is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to early 1960s. 

== Formation and early success ==
The Kingston Trio was formed in 1957 in the Palo Alto, calypso sounds of Harry Belafonte, and other folk artists such as the Gateway Singers and the Tarriers,, they  were discovered playing at a Menlo College-area club, the Cracked Pot, by Frank Werber, a publicist then working at San Francisco's hungry i nightclub.  He became their manager, and secured them a one-shot recording contract with Capitol Records. Shane would later tell concert audiences that the group considered itself at first to be primarily a  calypso group, and therefore named itself after the capital of Jamaica.  

The group's first hit was a catchy rendition of a traditional folk song, "Tom Dooley", based upon the life of the tragic figure, Best Country & Western Performance, at the awards inaugural ceremony in 1959. The next year, the group won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for the album ''The Kingston Trio at Large''. 

At one point in the early 1960s The Kingston Trio had four albums at the same time among the Top 10 selling albums, a record unmatched for nearly 40 years. In spite of this, they had a relatively small number of hit singles.

The group's music was simple and accessible, with much use of tight vocal producer Voyle Gilmore<ref>[http://users2.ev1.net/~smyth/linernotes/personel/Gilmore.htm Interviews with Voyle Gilmore, Trio's producer 1957-1964]</ref> enhanced their vocal sound with reverb and the relatively new process of doubletracking, in which the performers sang along with their own prerecorded part to produce a stronger sound than with a single voice, in part due to a natural gap of a fraction of a second between the original recording and the overdubbed part. At first, pairs of tape recorders were used, then later multitrack recording machines, to produce the effect.

Several of the group's most popular songs were humorous numbers, such as "nuclear war.

== The '60s and later==
thumb|left|The Kingston Trio's second troupe after Guard's departure:  John Stewart, Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane
Guard left the band in 1961 as part of a disagreement over its musical direction and with the way their publishing earnings were being handled.<ref>Ritchie Unterberger in liner notes for ''Dave Guard & The Whiskey Hill Singers''</ref> He formed the group John Stewart, who led the group through several more years of popularity until the arrival of The Beatles and British invasion rock bands pushed them from the charts. Guard died of lymphatic cancer in 1991, and Stewart of a massive stroke (or possibly aneurysm) in 2008, leaving Reynolds and Shane as the two surviving original (and heyday) members.

The Trio (in its original incarnations) disbanded after a final performance at the hungry i on June 17, 1967 (skipping an encore to attend the nearby Monterey Pop Festival).  Shane, the lone member to resist the breakup, started a new group, aptly named The New Kingston Trio in 1969 with Jim Connor and Pat Horine. He eventually reached a contractual agreement with his former partners, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber, to secure and license once again the original name, The Kingston Trio, in 1976.(Blake et al. 1986.) Shane continues to have rights to the name as of 2008.

Stewart, who wrote the Monkees hit "Daydream Believer" and recorded nearly four dozen solo albums, and scored a Top 10 hit single of his own in 1979 with "Gold",  died on January 19, 2008 of a brain aneurysm at a San Diego, California hospital.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/arts/music/21stewart.html?ref=obituaries "John Stewart, Who Wrote Monkees Hit, Dies at 68"], Associated Press, via ''The New York Times'', January 21, 2008</ref>

By 1973 the trio was Shane, Roger Gambill, and Bill Zorn. Zorn left in 1976, and was replaced by George Grove.<ref>[http://corporateartists.com/kingstontrio.html Corporate Entertainment - The Kingston Trio booking information for your next event!<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Bob Haworth, a member of The Brothers Four from 1970 to 1985, sang with the Trio from 1985 until 1988, filling in for Gambill, who was hospitalized, and eventually replaced him when Gambill died that year. In 1988, Nick Reynolds, one of the original three members, returned, replacing Bob Haworth. Reynolds retired in 1999, and Haworth returned to the Trio through 2005.<ref>[http://www.kingstontrio.com/content/the_players_1.htm The Kingston Trio... The Players 1<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

In 2005, Shane retired from the group due to health problems.<ref>[http://www.kingstontrio.com/content/the_players_1.htm The Kingston Trio... The Players 1<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
He was replaced by the returning Bill Zorn, leaving The Limeliters, who he'd been a member of in the 1990s. Also coming from the Limeliters was Rick Dougherty, who replaced Haworth, who'd also left the group.
 
As of 2006, The Kingston Trio consists of George Grove, Zorn, and Dougherty.

== "Scotch and Soda" ==
left|thumb|The Kingston Trio in 2003: George Grove, Bob Shane, Bobby Haworth (bassist Paul Gabrielson).
Through the years, the most requested song  for The Kingston Trio was "Scotch and Soda", which was always performed as a solo number by Shane.  The trio discovered this song through Tom Seaver's parents, who had first heard it when on their honeymoon.  One member of the trio was dating Seaver's older sister at that time, and heard the song on a visit to the Seaver home.  Although it is credited to Dave Guard, the trio never did discover the real songwriter's name, though they searched for years.http://www.lazyka.com/linernotes/thesongs/ScotchAndSoda.htm

Since Shane's retirement, the song is only rarely performed live, and sometimes as a solo by one of the current members and at others in an audience sing-along.<!--This sounds like disallowed WP:NOR-->