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KINGSTON KORNER NEWSLETTER

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mom in it. I'll get nervous. Put the Kings and the Queens and the Presidents there and I'm not shakin'. But put Mom in the front row and I get a little up tight."

Following high school graduation, Roger went to Wake Forest College, but quickly lost interest in pursuing academics. Although music was his first love, after leaving college he tried a number of jobs, all except one in sales. The one non-sales job he tried was with Holly Farms Poultry where he started at the bottom and worked his way up to be a supervisor.

Roger's last sales job was in hardware, and it was while selling hard-ware that he realized that if he wanted to realize his life's ambition of a career in music and entertaining, he could wait no longer — it wasn't going to come to him; he was going to have to go out and find it. So he decided to give it a try, and in 1970 quit his job and went to Nashville where he lived with a friend, Larry Moore, a student at Vanderbilt University.

Roger tried a lot of things, including a spot at 0pryland, in trying to break into the entertainment business, but none of them seemed to suit him. Then when Larry Moore graduated from Vanderbilt they formed a duo, calling themselves Gamble & Moore, and recorded one record album under that name.

But despite the time Roger had spent around Nashville, he still hadn't figured out the best way to get a booking, and Larry didn't know how either. But they knew that a new Ramada Inn with a lounge was being built in Nashville and, before the owner had gotten around to booking entertainment, they went to him. He liked them and gave them the job.

It was the start of a successful career. Working for awhile as a trio known as Chadwick, Gamble & Moore, and for the rest of the time as Gamble & Moore, they played many dates between Nashville and Cape Girardeau, Missouri during the summer, and hit the Northern ski resort circuit during the winter. But they played east of Nashville too, and on one of those occasions were working at Sugar Mountain in North Carolina. Louise Shane, Bob's wife, was there for a weekend with her sister and heard them perform. Knowing that Bob was working on putting together a new Kingston Trio, she mentioned to Bob the show she had seen and told him that she thought one member of the duo was the kind of entertainer Bob was looking for.

It wasn't long before Bob was on the phone looking for Roger and, after a number of calls, caught up with him in Spokane, Washington. After introducing himself (as if an introduction was needed), he invited Roger and Catherine to come down to Sea Island, Georgia to talk things over and audition.

After their time at Sea Island, several weeks passed before Bob call-ed and asked Roger to join the Kingston Trio along with Bill Zorn who had just left the New Christy Minstrels. So in 1973 Bob, Roger and Bill became the New Kingston Trio, and Roger and Catherine moved to Atlanta in the late summer of that year.

Roger's career with the New Kingston Trio, and later the Kingston Trio, is pretty well known by most fans, so we won't repeat it here. But before we leave it, there is another aspect of Roger's contributions to the Kingston Trio, and that is this: During his days in Nashville Roger had met and gotten to know a studio musician by the name of George Grove. Several years later, when Bill Zorn announced his intention to leave the group and Bob and Roger were looking for a replacement for him, Roger mentioned George, and the Kingston Trio that we have known for the last several years came to be.

Among our memories of Roger are that a show never went by without him mentioning his "lovely wife Catherine." I'm sorry to say that we have yet to have the privilege of meeting her, but from talking with her on the telephone she certainly seems to be everything that Roger described her as being. So it seems only fitting that the "Roger Gambill Story" also include the "Catherine Gambill Story."

Roger and Catherine first met on January 3, 1972, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Roger and Larry (Gamble & Moore) were working at the time. A mutual friend introduced them and five months later, on May 4, 1972, they were married. They have one daughter, Cameron, who is nearly 13 now, and Roger also has two daughters, Cindy and

EDITORIAL

I don't think we ever consciously thought about it, but I guess we always knew that if the Newsletter lasted long enough there would have to be an issue like this one. We never thought of it coming this soon though, and that hasn't made it any easier to pull ourselves together and get it out.

We had started putting this issue together in early March when word of Roger's heart attack first reached us, and we immediately cleared space for a story on his struggle to recover. When the sad news of his stroke, and then of his death arrived, everything else planned for this issue seemed superfluous in comparison. The next issue will be out in mid-summer with the usual fare, but for now we pause to remember Roger.

Our special thanks go to those friends of Roger's who took the time to share their remembrances of him with us. We also want to thank Larry Crawford and Mark James Meli for their letters which so well express the thoughts of all fans. Of the many letters we received, we felt that these two covered all of the thoughts so well. And thanks also to Dick Cerri of WLTT radio in Washington DC for letting us quote from his March 24th "Music Americana" tribute to Roger. It was beautifully done.

And most of all we want to thank Catherine Gambill for sharing Roger with us — first of all for those 12 years he spent on the road with all of us, and now through her remembrances and treasured photographs of him. We know that we speak for all of you in expressing these thanks and in expressing our condolences to her, Cameron and the rest of Roger's family.

And our special thanks to Roger for all the good times, the pleasant memories and the wonderful music. Rest in peace, Roger. We miss you.

Kirn, now both adults, from an earlier marriage. Subsequent to moving to Atlanta when Roger joined the Kingston Trio, they bought a home in nearby Roswell, not far from where Bob and George live.

It is this proximity to friends who are both personal and professional friends that has helped Catherine through the anguish of Roger's illness and death. She also feels that a great deal of help and strength came from Roger himself, and related how she said her final "good-bye" to him the night before he died, and thought of how Roger had commented on several occasions that he didn't think he'd live past the age of 45. She thinks that, in his own way, Roger was trying to prepare her, himself and Cameron for the inevitable.

She also described that special feeling that develops among people in the entertainment community, and how that makes it easier for Catherine to talk about Roger now that he's gone. Because of these friends and because of Roger she feels very much at peace about him now and expressed that feeling by saying, "Roger lived so many of his dreams, but could never find the peace he longed for here on Earth. He's found it now."

In closing, Catherine asked that any friends wishing to make memorials do so by gifts to the Heart Fund or any other charity in Roger's name, and said what may be the greatest of the many eulogies Roger is receiving: "A lot of people, from throughout the world, have said how happy Roger made them. He was incredible and I'll be eternally grateful for the thirteen years I had with him. It was most remarkable."

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