Nick Reynolds

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Nick Reynolds (July 27, 1933 San Diego, California - October 1, 2008 San Diego, California) was an American folk musician and recording artist. Reynolds was one of the founding members of The Kingston Trio, whose largely folk-based material captured international attention during the late fifties and early sixties.

Biography

Early life

Growing up in Coronado, California, his passions as a boy growing up were tennis, skin-diving and singing with his family. His father, a Navy captain, was an avid guitar player who brought back songs from his travels around the world. He taught Nick the guitar and ukulele, and the family spent many nights singing and harmonizing for pure enjoyment. Nick enrolled in Menlo College in 1954 as a business major, and met Bob Shane in an accounting class. They soon started hanging out, drinking, and chasing women together, and this, in turn, led to playing music, initially as a way of being popular at parties — Shane's guitar and Reynolds' bongos became a fixture at local frat gatherings, and after a few weeks of this, Shane introduced Reynolds to Dave Guard.

Career

"The Kingston Trio" was certainly largely inspired by "The Weavers," but carried the concept of a folk-group, especially one featuring a guitar/banjo combination, further into the mainstream of mid-to-late 50's popular music. In turn, the "Trio" became an early inspiration to countless groups, including "The Beach Boys" — whose striped shirts, on their first album cover, intentionally emulated what "The Kingston Trio" wore — and "Peter, Paul and Mary" — who owe their fundamental concept as a mainstream, folk/pop group, to its originators, "The Kingston Trio" and "The Weavers."

Shane returned to Hawaii for a time to work for his father's sporting goods company. Guard and Reynolds began playing with Joe Gannon on bass and singer Barbara Bogue, and became "Dave Guard & the Calypsonians". Reynolds then left for a time following his graduation and was replaced by Don McArthur in a group that was known as the Kingston Quartet, and in a resulting shuffle, Reynolds and Shane (back all the way from Hawaii) were brought back into the group, now rechristened the Kingston Trio. Their initial approach to music was determined by the skills that each member brought or, more accurately, didn't bring to the trio — Nick Reynolds sang a third above the melody, swapped his ukulele for a tenor guitar, and his bongos for a conga drum. Reynolds provided the group with an ebullient vocal style, superb harmonizing, and an ability to convey tender lyrics with a touching intimacy. The trio disbanded in 1967 but was revived in the seventies under the direction of original member Bob Shane, and continues to the present although Shane retired from performing in 2004. When the Trio disbanded, Reynolds moved to Oregon where he spent twenty years ranching and raising 4 children.

When the group disbanded, Reynolds returned to motor racing, which he had first tried as a novice in the early 1950s. He helped finance Nade Bourgeault operation in Mill Valley, California^[1] and raced the Bourgeault Formula C car in the Northern Pacific Division of the SCCA in 1967, finishing second in the divisional championship^[2]. He moved up to Formula B in 1968 with a Brabham BT21 and was again second in the Divisional title^[3].

In 1981 the Trio reunited, featuring Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, Dave Guard, John Stewart, George Grove, Roger Gambill. A PBS Reunion Special DVD was recorded, hosted by Tommy Smothers and featuring special guest Mary Travers. In 1983, Nick Reynolds (known within the group as "Budgie") collaborated with John Stewart and Lindsey Buckingham on a new album/CD Revenge of the Budgie with seven new recordings.

In the mid-eighties Reynolds moved back to California and rejoined the Trio in 1988/1998. He sang and played with them for another 10 years, then retired for the second time in December, 1998. Folk Music Archives interviewed the Trio in San Antonio and New York City when Nick Reynolds, performed in his last show with the group during a concert with the San Antonio Symphony.

Nick Reynolds lived the last years of his life comfortably in Coronado, California with his wife Leslie. For eight years, he joined John Stewart to do a “Trio” fantasy camp in Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition to sharing a dinner with a question and answer session, campers joined Reynolds and Stewart on stage to perform a song, becoming for that one moment a member of a fantasy "Kingston Trio."

Nick Reynolds died on October 1, 2008, in San Diego, California from acute respiratory disease.^[4][5]

References

External links

• Nick Reynolds at the Internet Movie Database
• Kingston Trio
• Folk U.S.A. - Archived vintage Kingston Trio audio and video clips.
• Folk Archives
• Life Magazine Cover
• Kingston Trio recording with Boobams
• Bruce Eder's Capsule KT History
• Trio Fantasy Camp Home Page
• Nick Reynolds Interview, 2006