THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
By Michael McDowell

CDs - REISSUES / ANTHOLOGIES (from: blitzmagonline.com)

FLASHBACK 1963 - The Kingston Trio (Folk Era)

There are very few artists with vast recorded legacies who can claim to have their entire recorded repertoires remaining in print in the CD configuration to the present day. Even more unlikely is the artist whose sizeable recorded canon not only remains available, but is supplemented with an abundance of releases of heretofore unreleased archival material; be it from studio work or live appearances.

In the case of the Kingston Trio, the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the ongoing availability of their original releases for Capitol, Decca, Xeres and other labels joined by a wealth of collections that chronicle either lost studio projects or concerts from a variety of stages in their lengthy career. Given the enormity of the band’s impact on the development of music at large over the past half century, the ongoing interest is not at all surprising.

With respect to live recordings, the Kingston Trio has long been regarded in many circles as having produced one of the finest concert recordings in history with their landmark Once Upon A Time double album for Bill Cosby's Tetragrammaton Records. So great was the impact of Once Upon A Time that it has not only been reissued in various CD configurations since its original 1969 vinyl release (some of which were admittedly of dubious legality), but it in turn in recent years has inspired the introduction of numerous other concert collections from that stage of the band’s career.

Long an integral factor in the Kingston Trio’s ongoing success, Folk Era Records was responsible for several such projects, including Snapshot and An Evening With The Kingston Trio, each of which features the Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds and John Stewart version of the band. Folk Era also made available an expanded edition of their landmark Stereo Concert album from the earlier Dave Guard era and the indispensible Everybody’s Talking, which showcases the much missed Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds and George Grove edition of the group.

Thankfully, due in part to the enormous acclaim that they were afforded, an above average number of live sets were preserved on tape. Flashback 1963 is one such set and in many ways is more than a mere variation of its predecessors.

Recorded at the University Of Kentucky on 03 October 1963 (just days apart from the performance that resulted in Folk Era’s essential The Cambridge Tapes by the Highwaymen), Flashback 1963 is at once both a cohesive forerunner to Once Upon A Time and a distinct entity in its own right. For while much of the material and transitional patter (including Bob Shane’s trademark “Stand there and grin at it” quip and John Stewart’s reference to The Andy Williams Show) is indigenous to both projects, Flashback 1963 is nonetheless much more than just a test run for the triumph that is Once Upon A Time.

In some respects, Flashback 1963 is as much an anomaly as it is an integral piece of the puzzle. In strict chronological view of the band’s live catalog, the parallels between this new release and the later Snapshot and Once Upon A Time collections seem all the more curious, given the considerable differences in repertoire and dialogue found in the intervening late March 1964 concerts that resulted in the Back In Town album for Capitol.

However, Back In Town was released later that year to fulfill contract obligations with Capitol. The band was about to sign with Decca Records and was seemingly intent upon taking their developing live mission statement with them in anticipation of continuing their demonstrated success with concert material at their new label. As such, the notable variations in the set list of the Capitol release, while in and of themselves comprising an engaging presentation, are nonetheless a testament to the band’s judiciousness.

Ultimately, the Kingston Trio’s affiliation with Decca was limited to four studio albums, prompting the eventual release of the July 1966 sessions that became Once Upon A Time on Tetragrammaton nearly three years later. Hence the proliferation of previously unissued live material from that same stage of the band’s career.

And while the “better late than never” maxim definitely applies in this case, the Kingston Trio’s unwavering faithful audience has been the beneficiary in abundance. Even at this early stage, such material as The Shape Of Things, M.T.A., Greenback Dollar, Get Away John and Wimoweh were already being rendered on all cylinders.

And while some variables in execution are inevitable in view of the sheer volume of performances involved (particularly noted in Shane’s somewhat more lighthearted rendering of his signature Scotch And Soda in comparison to the Once Upon A Time version, as well as Stewart and Reynolds’ thinly disguised undercurrent of wariness in reference to comments by unenlightened observers who apparently had been unable to distinguish their work from that of the Brothers Four or Peter, Paul And Mary), some of the variables are at once both refreshing and amusing. Witness for example the emphasis on exuberance over urgency in the Flashback 1963 version of Woody Guthrie’s Hard Ain’t It Hard (which actually stems from another performance, due to irreparable damage on the master tape) or the absence of the in-joke laughter that made the inclusion of that particular take of Greenback Dollar a down to the wire decision in the Tetragrammaton album.

To be certain, the material unique to this double CD in terms of the live setting is ideal for inclusion at that stage of their developing live mission statement. In many ways, it also serves as a chronicle for the transitions which both band and the society they frequently took to task as troubadours were experiencing at the time.

To that effect, the opening Gospel rocker, This Little Light Of Mine was as much a celebration of the optimism of the John F. Kennedy era as its Once Upon A Time counterpart, Hard Travelin’ was more of a reflection of the weariness borne of what had increasingly become an uphill climb for them both as a band and social commentators when recording the Once Upon A Time sessions in Lake Tahoe nearly three years later.

Likewise, the Kingston Trio could not have possibly anticipated the disaster that was slightly more than a month away while reprising the Kennedy tribute, Big Ball In Boston (also known as Big Ball In Town) from their March 1963 The Kingston Trio #16 album. That John Stewart obviously relished the opportunity to present his Kennedy impersonations (as well as his coy references to Kennedy satirist Vaughn Meader, along with then Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater) in the transitional patter herein merely underscores the point.

Indeed, given the circumstances that awaited them both as a band and in society at large, Flashback 1963 is overall a more optimistic endeavor. Although the relatively more serious atmosphere of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind (which Nick Reynolds introduces in somewhat unnerving prophetic fashion) and their own hugely successful interpretation of the great Billy Edd Wheeler’s The Reverend Mister Black each serve to reiterate the role as social commentators that the band has made occasional (and futile) attempts to downplay over the years, it is John Stewart’s wry op/ed monologues, Bob Shane’s everyman euphemisms and Nick Reynolds’ quick wit that provides the indispensible chemistry in a Kingston Trio performance, irrespective of changes in personnel.

To their eternal credit, Folk Era could not have brought the point home more succinctly than they did by recruiting Nick Reynolds’ son, Joshua S. Reynolds to pen the sleeve notes. Composed in the wake of the elder Reynolds’ tragic passing in October 2008 and on the verge of Josh Reynolds’ historic collaboration with Dave Guard’s son, Tom and Bob Shane’s son, Jason at the Kingston Trio’s annual Fantasy Camp in Arizona in August 2009, the younger Reynolds herein paints a sublime portrait of his first hand observations of that which made his late father and his bandmates’ art an enduring and indispensable component of the overall recorded canon.

Indeed, Josh Reynolds in that Arizona performance proved to be as much of a commanding stage presence as was his father in terms of his flair for repartee. Nonetheless, he astutely summarized herein his father’s (and the Kingston Trio’s) mission statement in two words: “Everybody sings”.