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A Random Album Pick – The Kingston Trio – Nick Bob John

This morning I randomly picked out an album from a crate of vinyl that was near me. The album was The Kingston Trio‘s album Nick-Bob- John. Released in 1964, the album was their first recording on the Decca label. The trio was extremely popular from 1958 through 1963 There first 5 albums peaked at No. 1 on the charts and were certifed Gold Records.. That explains why their albums are so numerous at Goodwills.

When I first realized that good albums could be found at Goodwills I started to search out folk music from the 1950s and 1960s. And The Kingston Trio albums were the easiest to find. I found this album interesting because by this time John Stewart had joined the trio.

The First Spin

I put the album on and started to do write a blog post. The first song was “Midnight Special” a song I have heard countless times over the years. My ears really perked up when I heard the third song “Someday Soon” an Ian Tyson song that has been covered by many of my favorite artists. My favorite cover though is by Judy Collins!

Down the Folk Music Rabbit Hole

Then came “Gotta Travel On” and this is when the ground started to split and a rabbit hole emerged! When I first went to Google to find out more about the song I saw a result that said Gotta Travel On words ad lyrics by Bob Dylan I thought that’s not right. When I looked back at the back of the album I saw that the songwriter was Paul Clayton.

Now that makes sense Clayton was very active in the early folk scene in Greenwich Village and I knew Dave Van Ronk had written about him in Van Ronk’s he Mayor of MacDougal Street

So I searched Google for info on the relationship between Van Ronk, Clayton and Dylan.. Here’s what i found out

Further Down the Folk Music Rabbit Hole…….

Next, I discovered that the song went back a long way and that while some say The Kingston Trio introduced the song. However, The Weavers had actually recorded it several years earlier. The sent me down the rabbit-hole to find my Weaver albums to see if I had one with “Gotta Travel On”. Bingo! And it’s even in the slightly referenced in the album title Travelin’ On with the Weavers. The song ends the album! Here’s What they wrote about the song.

Here again was the fragment of a song with an appealing rhythm we wanted to preserve. We wrote new lyrics to tell a lonesome tale: who has not felt.

What the Liner Notes Taught Me

Finally, when I pulled out the Weaver album I also pulled out The Weavers Greatest Hits. When I looked at the songs I recognized the majority of them including the likes of: “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” “Wimoweh” and “Rock Island Line” Hey is that the Johnny Cash song? Yep.

Anyway I saw that many of these songs were written by Paul Campbell. and Kisses Sweeter than Wine and Rock Island Line were written by Paul Campbell and Joel Newman. Who were these songwriters??? Off again to Google, etc

Paul Campbell is a pseudonym used by The Weavers (Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert) between 1948 and 1953 to copyright their arrangements of traditional folk songs. It allowed the group to claim songwriting credit for adapted material, such as “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”

Now the question is who is Joel Newman? The answer Huddie Ledbetter aka Lead Belly.

Another of the things I learned from the liner notes on Travelin’ On with the Weavers involved “Kumbaya.” When they first encountered it, all they had was the word “Kumbaya,” brought back from Africa, and a rhythm that sounded like a lullaby. So they wrote it as a lullaby.

All of this from pulling one random album off a shelf.

A Folk Music Rabbit Hole Playlist

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