In my opinion (which is worth what you pay for it), the biggest mistake the Trio made after Dave left was in failing to hire an arranger like Milt Okun. Their arrangements were never as interesting or as good after Dave left. I suspect that was partly Dave's absence and partly the absence of Buck Wheat, who was a far more trained and experienced musician than Nick, Bob or Dave.
I'll give an example. Listen to Remember the Alamo. Nick and Dave do an "ahhh, ahhh, ahh" thing behind Dave's lead. They actually split into two-part harmony doing that background. Man, that is attention to detail.
As another example, you could generally hear Dave singing his low-harmony part and his part was distinctive and added a lot to the mix. It was a cool group sound. With John Stewart, it was usually very tough to hear his part. The predominant sound was Nick singing a third above Shane's lead.
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