The Kingston Trio is an American folk group that helped launch the folk rev… Read Full Bio ↴The Kingston Trio is an American folk group that helped launch the folk revival of the 1960s and continued to thrive despite the emergence of rock and roll.

The Kingston Trio was formed in 1957 in the Palo Alto, California area by original lineup of Dave Guard (1934–1991), Bob Shane (1934–2020), and Nick Reynolds (1933–2008), who were just out of college. Greatly influenced by The Weavers, the calypso sounds of Harry Belafonte, and other semi-popular folk artists such as the Gateway Singers and the Tarriers, they were discovered playing at a college club called the Cracked Pot by Frank Werber, a local publicist then working at the Hungry i. He became their manager, and secured them a one-shot deal with Capitol Records.

Their first hit was a catchy rendition of an old-time folk song, "Tom Dooley", which went gold in 1958. It was so popular that it entered popular culture as a catchphrase: Ella Fitzgerald, for example, parodies it during her recorded version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". It won them the first Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance in 1959. The next year, they won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording category for the album The Kingston Trio at Large.

At one point in the early 1960s The Kingston Trio had four albums at the same time among the Top 10 selling albums, a record unmatched for nearly 40 years. In spite of this, they had a relatively small number of hit singles.

The group's music was simple and accessible, with much use of tight vocal harmony, signature riffs (often played on the banjo), and repetitive choruses. Capitol producer Voyle Gilmore[1] enhanced their vocal sound to great effect with reverb and the relatively new process of doubletracking, in which the performers sang along with their own pre-recorded part to produce a stronger sound than with a single voice, in part due to a natural time gap of a fraction of a second between the original recording and the overdubbed part. At first pairs of tape recorders were used, then later multitrack recording machines, to produce the effect.

Guard left the band in 1961 as part of a disagreement over its musical direction. He formed the group Whiskey Hill Singers, and was replaced by John Stewart, who led the group through several more years of popularity until the arrival of The Beatles and British invasion rock bands pushed them from the charts.

In 1967 the Trio disbanded after a final performance at the Hungry i, June 17, 1967.

Shane, the lone member to resist the break-up of the Trio, started a new group, aptly named, "The New Kingston Trio," in 1969. Eventually, Shane was successful in reaching a contractual agreement with his former partners, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber, to secure and license once again, the original name, "The Kingston Trio" (unencumbered by the adjective new), in 1976.(Blake et al. 1986.) Shane still owns the property today, 2006.

For a number of years in the 1980s Reynolds, one of the original three members, rejoined Shane.

In 2004 Shane retired from the group due to health problems. He was replaced by Bill Zorn, who had been with Shane in an iteration of the group called The New Kingston Trio; Zorn also has been a member of The Limeliters.

In 2005 Bobby Haworth (a one-time member of The Brothers Four) left the group to be replaced by Rick Dougherty, who also had been a member of The Limeliters.

As of 2006, The Kingston Trio consisted of George Grove, Bill Zorn and Rick Dougherty.

in October 2017, Grove, Zorn, and Dougherty were replaced as the Trio by new licensees Reynolds and Marvin and their friend, Tim Gorelangton. In 2018, Josh Reynolds left the group and was replaced by Bob Haworth, who became a member of the band for the third time. At the end of 2018, Haworth left the group and was replaced by Don Marovich.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
The Kingston Trio Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Where have all the flowers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone
Young girls picked them, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone
Gone to young men, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone
Gone to soldiers, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone
A long, long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone
Gone to graveyards, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone
Gone to flowers, every one

When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Overall Meaning

The Kingston Trio’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” is a powerful anti-war ballad. The song uses a cyclical structure to recreate a sense of loss and hopelessness. The song starts with asking where all the flowers have gone, which is answered by mentioning that young girls had picked them all. Then, the question shifts to where all the young girls have gone, and the answer is that they’ve gone to marry young men. The same pattern follows for the fate of young men who have gone to war and soldiers who have gone to the graveyards, and finally, the graveyards themselves that end up surrounded by flowers.

The lyrics are structured in a way that creates a sense of futility, the circle of life that ends in death and destruction. The repeated questions highlight the cyclical nature of war and the never-ending cycle of loss and pain, asking when people will ever learn. By combining the beauty of flowers with the devastation of war and death, the lyrics create a haunting and profound critique of the destructive nature of war.

Line by Line Meaning

Where have all the flowers gone
Asking what happened to all the flowers that once existed

Long time passing
It has been a significant amount of time since they disappeared

Long time ago
The flowers disappeared a very long time ago

Young girls picked them, every one
The flowers were picked by young girls

When will they ever learn?
Asking when people will learn from their mistakes

Where have all the young girls gone
Asking what happened to all the young girls

Gone to young men, every one
The young girls got married to young men

Where have all the young men gone
Asking what happened to all the young men

Gone to soldiers, every one
The young men went to become soldiers

Where have all the soldiers gone
Asking what happened to all the soldiers

A long, long time ago
The soldiers disappeared a very long time ago