These legendary recording artists and live entertainers own the first Grammy every given for Best Country & Western song. They shot to worldwide fame in 1958 with the release of their multi-million crossover hit "Tom Dooley".
It was only the first in a long-running string of singles which included "Greenback Dollar," "The Reverand Mr. Black," "Worried Man," "Where Have all the Flowers Gone," and many more. They began America's folk revival and defined an era.

Their dominance in album sales is historic. Releasing albums for Capitol Records at the rate of 3 or 4 full albums a year - an unheard of pace today - the trio topped the album charts for years, demonstrating the huge revenue potential of album sales and changing the recording industry.

Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane and Dave Guard were 3 friends who began singing together in college for beer and pretzels. Their formula for success was often imitated but never equaled:

material we can call on for the rest of our lives.

OAC: Did your original success with the trio come as a suprise?

BS: Well, I was expected to go back and take over my Dad's business which was a wholesale sporting goods and toy business. We covered the entire Pacific area. After "Tom Dooley" I sent him $10,000 to be invested for me. My Mom wired me back and said "Don't ever do that again. Your Father almost had a heart attack!" (laughs)

1) powerful songs 2) brilliantly performed acoustic guitar insturmentals 3) rich blends of vocal harmonies 4) their dynamic onstage presence showcasing their engaging personalities and musical prowess. Kingston Trio Concerts have always been summed up in a single word: fun.

With only one personel change (John Stewart replaced Dave Guard in 1961), The Kingston Trio powered the folk revolution from 1958 until they disbanded in 1967. When founding member Bob Shane missed the fun he re-formed with new players. The Kingston Trio continues entertaining audiences to this day. We caught up with Bob on his break from touring to speak with him from his home in Phoenix.

OAC: Its said the roots of today's country music are found in American folk music, which The Kingston Trio re-introduced to the country in the late 1950's. Some say The Kingston Trio saved country music.

BS: They didn't have a folk singing category category the first year of the Grammys, which was 1958. They wanted to give us a Grammy for Tom Dooley, after they had just called us folk singers. Now, we didn't call ourselves folk singers. We were just guys having a good time chasing chicks, you know (laughs). So they looked around and they realized that country music was at an all time low in sales in '57 & '58, and a lot of people couldn't get work. So they used us to help country music out. We won the first Grammy ever given for best country and western presentation that year.

OAC: So you see a connection between country music and folk music.

BS: The roots are all the same and they're all church music. My great-great grandfather was a congregational missionary from Boston who sailed to Hawaii to do good and did well. I grew up in Hawaii learning Hawaiian music.

OAC: So you see a connection...?

BS: Well, Hawaiian music: verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Folk music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Country music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Very simple. But the origins of all of them basically came from church music in a way. It was the missionary families, one of which I was from, and they taught that (structure). Before that, Hawaiian music only had chants. Then they took the church music and made beautiful music out of it. And folk music is what was brought over, and that probably includes country music. And it was all originally based on church music.

OAC: The Kingston Trio is often mentioned as a candidate for some of the new Halls of Fame.

BS: I've had friends who have tried to get us to be recognized from the Kennedy honors, and who have said we should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. But when you've been around 45 years, all the people who run those things today have absolutely no idea who we are (laughter). You know, in the music business you have an actual maximum period of time that usually lasts no more then ten years. And so, my idea after our run was, now we've got all that stuff out of the way, the records and all of that, now we have

OAC: The trio always had such great material. You introduced America to a lot of great new songwriters.

BS: We started off getting songs out of grade school song books. Songs that had been around for a long time, but some of the oddball ones, you know. And then we realize there is a tremendous number of songs around that are public domain, so we were the first ones to get hold of them. Nobody else was doing this yet. We went in and got all the really good songs. We discarded loads of songs that became hits by other artists later on. But you know, we just did the songs that we were interested in ourselves. And it worked out.

Later, when we got a writer that we liked, like Gordon Lightfoot or Billy Ed Wheeler, who had a prolific background in songwriting, we automatically went back to them. We did three or four albums a year and toured 280 days a year. You know, nobody's ever heard of that since then.

And we also wrote. We had a recording session and they said it was too short. We need another song by tomorrow. So we went home and we said, "Okay, so let's make it a little story." We drew straws and said who gets the first verse, second verse, and third verse. We wrote "Worried Man" in about an hour. We were young and full of interesting stuff like that. Today we perform only our original album songs. But we have over 400 to choose from which we recorded from '57 to '67. So we can perform our classics plus great songs folks never heard before.