William J. Bush, “Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio” (The Scarecrow Press, 2013)

After the huge success of Elvis Presley there was a moment when it looked as if rock ‘n’ roll might, indeed, be nothing more than a fad. Its successor in the world of popular music would be folk music, and its undisputed leader was the Kingston Trio. In Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio (The Scarecrow Press, 2013) William J. Bush details the history of this landscape altering band. In it, Bush details the biographies of, first, the original three members of the band – Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane, and Dave Guard – and their meteoric rise to fame from 1958 through 1961. He then tells of the falling out and eventual replacement of Guard with John Stewart and the continued artistic and commercial success of the band through the sixties. Along the way, Bush (a friend of all the members of these two incarnations of the band) describes the important places and events that led to the massive popularity that followed the Trio. So rock music never did fade away, but the influence of folk, thanks in large part to the Kingston Trio, became an integral part of popular music for decades to come.

William J. Bush is a music journalist whose articles have appeared in a number of music magazines including Acoustic Guitar, Frets, Pennsylvania Heritage, The Guitar Player Handbook, and Artists of American Folk Music. Additionally, he has written for EMI/Capital Records, Folk Era Records, Bear Family Records, and Shout! Factory. He also appears in the 2006 documentary “The Kington Trio: Wherever We May Go.”

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