The Kingston Trio - What a bunch of Folk'n Artists!

I grew up when there were still Belafonte Calypso, Weaver, and The Kingston Trio albums stacked by the record player in my parents house. It was the music my parents listened to. To me they all looked glossy and  posed and clean-cut (except for Bob Dylan. I don't know why I thought that or cared - but this was when buying an album meant buying a record sleeve that had a poster on one side and a book of text on the back. You could see the band and then read about how and why they had formed and written and published and toured.

I found this thin Random House book on the group at a sale last week, and, like the album I had seen in my parents record pile, I had no desire to buy it, but I did look inside...

Hello! Now I'm interested... Are those actual signatures? or just some scribblins from the kids in the house? Well, I was hooked and dropped a dollar to learn more about these three.

Deeper into the book are three more signatures, each matching pretty close the style and pen of the first. Are they the actual autographs...I don't know. Does it matter? It caused me to look more into the bio of this band of 3. Wikipedia has a good rundown of their meteoric rise to fame almost right from college and then the usual trials of success and too many nights on stage.  Read all about it here.

Or, take a look at this TV appearance:


Sure they had their critics, and their have been many official incantations of the same trio with new members, in fact there may be one coming to your town soon. Here's a final look at another page in the book - they were sought by many advertisers...