"A lifelong fan writes about both the Kingston Trio, who will perform on Sunday, and the Limeliters, who won't. Randy Furst, Star Tribune Personally I confess, I'm a folk music junkie, trapped in a time warp that pre-dates heavy metal, punk, and hip-hop, let alone the Beatles. When the Kingston Trio arrives at Orchestra Hall on Sunday afternoon, it will take everything I can muster to keep from standing on my seat to cheer every song, thoroughly embarrassing my wife, Gillian, who puts up with my peculiar fixation, but only barely. My excuse is that I was raised on this music. Over the next decade, they joined a pantheon of personal favorites -- among them, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, the Almanac Singers, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Fred Neil and Ian and Sylvia. Their CDs fill my shelves at home. As a college student, I attended the annual Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, slept in the car, and listened to some of the great folk acts of all time, highlighted by an appearance by Bob Dylan, backed up by a noisy rock band, that seemed to betray his roots and caused me to walk out of the concert. I soon forgave him. Over the years I got to know and love the Kingston Trio and their raucous exuberance. They had a string of terrific songs, among them, "M.T.A.," "Greenback Dollar," "Tom Dooley" and "Worried Man," plus "Scotch and Soda," one of the great drinking songs of all time. Aside from Peter, Paul and Mary, another favorite, they may be the most famous group in folk music. In recent years, my obsession with the Limeliters and Kingston Trio has known few bounds. I coaxed Gillian into going with me on an Alaskan cruise where both groups performed. I couldn't find anyone willing to drive with me to Bayfield, Wis., to see two former Limeliters, Rick Dougherty and Glenn Yarborough, sing at the Big Top Chautauqua -- so I went on the Internet and found a couple of fans, and we drove up together. It was a great time. A musical rumble I was overjoyed earlier this year when I saw that the Limeliters and Kingston Trio would be performing together at Orchestra Hall along with the Brothers Four, another folk group from the bygone era. Later, the program morphed, to my dismay, with the Limeliters and Brothers Four no longer in the show, replaced by two other superb folk acts, the Chad Mitchell Trio and Tom Paxton. I wondered what was up, so I called Orchestra Hall and was told that the Kingston Trio and Limeliters were involved in some type of dispute and wouldn't appear on stage together. For their devotees, the Kingston Trio's latest reincarnation must be baffling. George Grove, a 29-year veteran of the Kingston Trio, anchors the group. But the other two Kingston Trio members, Bill Zorn and Dougherty, were Limeliters until recently. They perform on a wonderful Limeliters album from 1998, "Until We Get It Right" along with Alex Hassilev, a founding Limeliter. When I started working on this article, I envisioned it to be mostly a love letter to folk music and particularly these two groups. Then I found out they were embroiled in a concert-rattling dispute. Hassilev called the Star Tribune last week to spell out his case. He's filed and settled one suit, but feels the Limeliters should be singing on tomorrow's program. He threatened to show up here this weekend to confront his former cohorts, though not at the concert itself. His allegations are too numerous to detail. I told him I was a little sad, kind of like a kid watching his parents go through a messy divorce. "Did you see, 'A Mighty Wind?' " Hassilev asked, referring to the movie that spoofs folk music. "This is a fetid breeze." Said Zorn, the Kingston Trio member, formerly with the Limeliters, and incidentally, before that, a member of the Kingston Trio in the 1970s: "It has been a pretty rough couple of years. It is the worst professional experience I have had in the last 40 years." What will we hear from the Kingston Trio on Sunday? I'm betting on a quality performance. The latest album, "Still Goin' Places," is a rousing triumph. Hassilev has reconfigured the Limeliters who have issued a new album, "Live! In Paradise," which preserves their magical arrangements and unique sound. I'd one day like to see the two groups on the same stage together, but I don't know that that will happen soon. I don't know who's right in this ruckus. As a fan, I still love them both. Randy Furst • 612-673-7382 Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved."
Last update: November 11, 2005 at 2:18 PM
Sometime around 1960, when I was about 13 years old, my parents introduced me to the music of the Limeliters, a classy folk music trio from the West Coast. My brother Al and I proceeded to wear out one record album after another, listening to the Limeliters' exquisite harmonies and incredible humor.
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