Nick Reynolds

By The Week Staff

last updated 8 January 2015

The master of harmony who founded the Kingston Trio

Nick Reynolds

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During an especially dull accounting class at Menlo College in California in 1954, Nick Reynolds noticed a fellow student who was fast asleep. Introducing himself to Bob Shane, Reynolds discovered they had a mutual interest in music. Shane in turn introduced Reynolds to his friend Dave Guard. Together, the three formed the Kingston Trio, whose tuneful repertoire helped spur the folk-music revival of the late 1950s; at their peak, they outsold Frank Sinatra. Within the group, Guard was “our acknowledged leader,” while Shane was “our sex symbol.” Reynolds, who died last week of acute respiratory disease, was “the runt of the litter.”

The son of a Navy captain, Reynolds, along with his mother and two sisters, “often engaged in singalongs led by their father, a guitarist with an affinity for old folk songs,” said the Los Angeles Times. “It was in these sessions that Reynolds developed his facility with intricate vocal harmonies that became one of the hallmarks of the Kingston Trio’s music. Reynolds typically handled the middle part of the trio’s scintillating three-part harmonies, sometimes adding bongos, congas, and other percussion accents.” (The group’s name was a nod to the Jamaican capital and the calypso music that was then popular.) At one of their first gigs, at the Cracked Pot in Palo Alto, Calif., publicist Frank Werber signed them up, scribbling the contract on a paper napkin. After playing some of the nation’s top clubs, including the Purple Onion and the Hungry i in San Francisco, the trio signed with Capitol Records. In 1959 alone they had four albums in the top 10, a record matched only by the Beatles.

Unlike Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and other folk performers, the Kingston Trio eschewed overtly political songs, said the San Diego Union-Tribune. Among their big hits were the Civil War–era ballad of a condemned prisoner, “Tom Dooley,” and the humorous “MTA,” about Charlie, “the man who never returned” after being stranded by a Boston mass-transit fare increase. “With their striped shirts and wholesome grins, the trio built a niche as a non-threatening act.” In their live appearances, they engaged in breezy byplay: introducing a song called “Coplas,” Reynolds would say, “We had the good luck of picking this up in Mexico,” whereupon Shane would chime in, “That’s not all we picked up.” Folk-music purists disdained the trio’s lack of edge, but the group made no apologies. “We had to sit down and make a decision,” said Reynolds. “Are we going to remain apolitical with our music? Or are we going to slit our throats and get blacklisted for doing protest music? We decided we’d like to stay in this business for a while.”

“Reynolds remained with the Kingston Trio until it disbanded in 1967, as folk music lost its audience to rock,” said The New York Times. “After a brief time building and racing Formula B cars, he moved to a cabin in Port Orford, Ore., without a television, telephone, or radio.” He also worked as a rancher and antiques dealer and ran the town’s only movie theater. In 1988, he and Shane re-formed the Kingston Trio with a new member, and Reynolds continued to perform with the group until retiring in 1999. Reynolds is survived by his third wife and four children.