Kingston Trio - String Along (1962) Vinyl LP and similar items

Catalog Number: T-1407 Condition Details: Vinyl plays with some crackles and a few light-clicks (play-graded). Cover looks good; some scuffing, discoloration and surface impressions (front/back); surface abrasions and noticeable discoloration with darker spots on back. Inner-sleeve is generic white. Spine is readable with developing splits at top and bottom. Shelf-wear along top/bottom-edge and corners with top edge split from center to right corner. Opening shows signs of use and some tearing along back edge. Center-left logo on label. (Not a cut-out.) Tracks: Bad Man Blunder The Escape Of Old John Webb When I Was Young Leave My Woman Alone This Mornin', This Evenin', So Soon Everglades Buddy Better Get On Down The Line South Wind Who's Gonna Hold Her Hand To Morrow Colorado Trail The Tattooed Lady About The Record: String Along has the most unusual sound of any Kingston Trio album, mostly by virtue of the crisp mixing and voicing of the instruments -- guitars and banjo all appear in very high relief, matching the attention usually reserved for the voices on the Kingston Trio's records. The result is a somewhat quieter record, without much presence of the familiar unified group sound, as the individual members are relied upon more than the ensemble singing on many of the songs. One of the few exceptions is Buddy Better Got On Down the Line, which has the sound that one associates with past trio recordings. But it's a true exception on an album that has other highlights such as oddities like the trio's surprisingly strong rendition of Ray Charles' Leave My Woman Alone. Though no one could have realized it at the time, String Along was very close to the tail end of the original Kingston Trio's history -- Dave Guard was losing interest in arguing over the direction of the group; and although their albums were still selling well and steadily, String Along (which hit No. 1) would yield the original group's last two charting singles. Bad Man's Blunder, which also opens this album, became the original Kingston Trio's final Top 40 single; it was cut by the trio and issued as a single as a favor to composer Cisco Houston who was in the hospital and terminally ill. Other songs were done for more mundane reasons -- according to Benjamin Blake, Jack Rubek, and Allan Shaw in their book The Kingston Trio on Record, the English folk-style The Escape of Old John Webb was featured on the album in the hope of helping to persuade EMI Records in England to promote the trio's albums more vigorously.