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KINGSTON KORNER NEWSLETTER

The Kingston Trio
George, Roger & Bob with Mary Travers
"The Kingston Trio and Friends Reunion"
Nov. 6, 1981

getting a whole bunch of ex-wives back together, and Roger said to me after the show, "Nicky, I think I can finally bury the ghost now after this." And I said, "Thank God, Roger." And I just gave him a big hug and I have only seen him once since then — just a year ago when they played at the Fairmont Hotel, and we stayed up all night talking and singing. And the last time I saw him he was singing a cappella —The Star Spangled Banner. They were practicing it to do for a baseball show at 9:00 in the morning; and boy, it just knocked me out to see those boys singing, and Roger just hitting those high notes, and God, he's just soaring with the eagles now!

And that's all I can say. I loved him, and I love him today, and he's my brother always!

- Nick Reynolds

* * * * *

The last time I saw Roger Gambill was in Los Altos just over a year ago. The Trio and my band were playing The Cellar for its closing week. Roger, Chuck McDermott, Steve Fiott and I went to kill an after-noon at a local matinee. The movie was "Hot Dog", one of the worst films ever conceived by man. Roger's response at the end of the film was, "Well I got to see some great skiing, look at some pretty girls and hear some good music with my friends. What could be better?" Roger knew that songs were for singing, people were for loving, and life was for living. He brought joy to everyone he touched. When you sang with Roger he looked at you as if to say, "Let's have fun," rather than "I'm going to sing you into the ground." We will all miss Roger very much and yet we all got to know Roger in one way or another. "What could be better?"

- John Stewart

* * * * *

I have agonized over writing these comments. Roger and I loved each other deeply and although the copious words and thoughts I feel for him crash into each other in my mind, they for some reason defy transcription to the written page.

For the past ten years Roger, Bob and I have lived together — flying and driving, eating and sleeping, singing and laughing, loving, helping, lying and crying— as The Kingston Trio. Just as surely as The Kingston Trio is "Tom Dooley" and hundreds of other songs and happiness for many fans, Roger was the absolute personification of an un-balanced balance of strange, sometimes diametrically opposed, elements of humor, candor and crazy that made up one of the great strengths of The Kingston Trio.

What took Roger? The road — being "on the road" and living in our frenetic lifestyle is certainly a factor. The road (thirty-five weeks per year of constant travel in and out of airports, in and out of hotels, in and out of good and bad moods) is filled with a constant diet of stress. The manner in which each of us deals with that stress manifests itself in different ways. Roger was a man who soaked up the stress like a sponge and then squeezed it out on stage in the form of humor. He merely arrived at his point of supersaturation early at the age of forty-two. No more stress — no more pain.

Like any individual talent, Roger is irreplaceable. The Kingston Trio has not "searched for" and "found" a "replacement" in our friend Bobby Haworth. Roger's era with the Trio is over and a newer era has begun. Because he was our friend, we miss him. Because he was a professional and we are also professionals, his talents are not so much "missed" as they are "recognized" and "admired."

We are intimates, those of us who travel together on the road. There is more shared than just music — we suffer through our own and each other's problems. We know and love each other's families. We doctor each other when we're ill; we counsel each other when we're troubled; we yell at each other when we're angry. I will miss Roger's special manner of doctoring, counseling and yelling. Roger was unique both personally and professionally. I am convinced he would have written this line, had it not already been written: "Put a jazz band on my hearse wagon, raise hell as I roll along." 'Bye, Rog --

- George Grove

* * * * *

I learned of the passing of Roger Gambill on the morning of March 22nd. I sat at my kitchen table as I do every morning, and began glancing at the morning paper with blurry vision as I had yet to "rub the sleep out of my eyes" as John Stewart would say . . . and there the headline read . . . "Kingston Trio singer dies." Not being quite awake yet, I sat glancing at the paper waiting for that headline to vanish, and for me to find myself back in my bed, and for the whole thing to be a bad dream . . . it wasn't to be. I spent the rest of the morning preparing for my afternoon class at school and I left the newspaper with that headline face-up on my kitchen table and everytime I passed it to wash my hair or grab some grape juice from the fridge, I had to read it again and again. As I type this letter to you, that headline is on my desk glaring out from the array of old pencils, spare change, envelopes and papers of all sorts, beckoning to be read once more. For it is about a man whom I watched perform some seven short months before and whom I can say without reservation, was one of the most high spirited performers I have ever seen. A man whose voice could charm with a single breath, and make you relax and forget the worst of days . . . a man who belonged to the greatest folk group in the world! It is a terrible loss, and I really can find no proper words to express the sympathy and deep sorrow that I feel for Bob and George.

 - Mark James Meli
Rochester, New York
March 26, 1985
(speaking for so many of us)

The Gamble-Moore record

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