Whiskeyhill Singers
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The Whiskeyhill Singers, formed in early 1961 by Dave Guard, one of the three original members of the Kingston Trio, was a Trio spin-off group that attempted to return to the Trio's earlier roots in folk music. The Singers lasted about six months before disbanding. During that short period the group released one album, Dave Guard & The Whiskeyhill Singers, and recorded four songs for the soundtrack of How The West Was Won.
Although the Kingston Trio had quickly risen in three short years from smokey gigs in the San Francisco penninsula's college town frat houses, bistros and bars to San Francisco's prestigious hungry i, and then on to become nationally and internationally well known, accepted, and successful, Dave felt that by 1961 the Trio's musical style had become fixed and predictable, and its performances increasingly commercial. The Trio, Dave reportedly felt, had lost touch with its simple, family-style, socially oriented folk music roots. That, and his concerns about the way the Trio's publishing earnings were being handled, [1], combined with long simmering artistic, social, and ego differences between himself and his former Punahou School classmate, Bob Shane, led Dave to break from the group. Shortly thereafter Dave formed the Whiskeyhill Singers with another Punahou School friend, Cyrus Faryar, and Trio bassist and musicologist David "Buck" Wheat.
In line with Dave's intention to return to folk music, with its frequently uninhibited enthusiasm and vocal harmonies, Cyrus suggested the group bring in an acquaintance of his, Judy Henske, to provide a female balance to the male harmonies, and in so doing, move definitively away from the Kingston Trio's male-only vocal format. Dave agreed, and the Whiskeyhill Singers, with Judy as female lead developed their own, often innovative, folk music mood, style, and sound.
Despite the group's intent to return to folk music, something along the lines of Pete Seegar's The Weavers, Dave and Buck's long association with the Trio and its musical style inevitably had an influence on the Singers's own musical style and arrangements. Complicating matters was the fact that the Trio's rollicking and successful style of uninhibited enthusiasm was also taken directly from folk music, leading to criticism that the musical style of the Singers was more "Trio-like" than being an original style of their own.
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[edit] The group
[edit] Dave Guard
[edit] "Buck" Wheat
[edit] Cyrus Faryar
[edit] Judy Henske
[edit] The group's name
[edit] The group's music history
While at Punahou, a private school in what was then the pre-statehood "Territory of Hawaii", Dave and his '52 classmate Bob "Bobbie" Schoën were frequently and regularly exposed to the words and a capella harmonies of the classical Hawaiian music of Hawai'i's revered Queen Liliuokalani. Ukulele's and Martin guitars tuned to either standard tuning or to one of the many Hawaiian slack key tunings, were the standard – if not expected – accompaniment to virtually all local music. The two were also regularly exposed to Japanese language and music broadcasts, as well as broadcasts of Chinese, Filipino, and Portuguese languages and music. Popular Japanese tunes of the 1949-1953 era, like Kankan musumae (koko no Hawaii) were popular among haole and non-haole's alike. Rarely understanding the meaning of the words, but being able to remember and sing a medley of popular and traditional Hawaiian "folk music" was virtually a requisite at house parties, beach parties, moonlight gatherings, and other events. Being able to sing along and play a ukulele or guitar was a recognized and envied accomplishment at which Dave and Bob gradually to excel during their high school years at Punahou.
Within this background of Hawaiian/Polynesian harmonies and instrumental accompaniments for venerable staples like Genoa Keawe's Kaimana Hila came the folk music of Burl Ives and Pete Seeger, with party songs like Burl Ives' rendition of On Top Of Old Smokey, Pete Seegar and The Weavers' ever popular Goodnight, Irene, and Roy Acuff's Wabash Cannonball. And later in the early 1950's, came Fijiian tunes, like Isa Lei, the perennial slack key favorite, the comic Samoan Salomila, the classic Pupu o Ewa, taught as one of the Class of '52's graduation songs (and which Do Ho's performed with English lyrics to become his signature, tourist favorite Pearly Shells), and the catchy, toe-tapping Molokai Nui Ahina, all of which were beach and house party favorites that certainly influenced and contributed to Dave and Bob's music style and rhythms.
[edit] The end of the line
[edit] Discography
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Ritchie Unterberger's liner notes for Collector's Choice CD, Dave Guard & The Whiskeyhill Singers
