IN THE MID-1980S, the Kingston Trio played to a packed house at the Back Alley Tavern in Port Townsend. The cover charge, according to Jim Harris, who was there, was $12.
On Sunday, Harris sat on a barstool in the same place, now called the Upstage Restaurant, and listened to another folk group play “Molly Dee,” “Everglades” and other Kingston Trio hits to a full house.
Other than a donation to the Jefferson County Humane Society, there was no cover charge, though the musicians did request something for the tip jar.
“It’s how we’re working our way through college,” Chet Rideout joked.
Rideout plays mandolin and banjo, and sings tenor in the group, Shady Grove, which Sunday held a release party for its first CD, “One More Song.”
Musicians
He and the other musicians — Larry Costello, guitarist and baritone vocals; Don Fristoe, lead singer and guitarist; and Pete Rowan, bass — delivered vintage folk songs with a pop and polish that delighted a houseful of fans, including people who hadn’t heard them the first time around.
“You can’t help not liking the music,” said Veronica Shaw, as everyone sang and clapped to an Irish drinking song, “Clap for the Daddy-O.”
Shaw, who is in her 40s, was one of several audience members who hadn’t lived through the ’60s.
Her parents, Barbara and Corky Morris, are longtime friends of Fristoe’s, she said.
Other young listeners were Alana Mousseau, who works at the Humane Society, and Tiffany Sullivan, an employee of veterinarian Hank Snelgrove.
Snelgrove, a bass player, recorded the songs on Shady Grove’s CD but was out of town due to a death in the family. So Rowan stepped in with only three days’ notice.
“He hadn’t seen 10 of these songs before,” Rideout said.
Also helping out was Mark Pearson, a member of the Brothers Four.
Pearson, who lives in Port Ludlow, came on stage to sing “Greensleeves” and play one of his own compositions, “Let Love Shine.”
Pearson sat with George Rezendes, who did the sound production for the CD.
Sandy Hershelman took photographs at the release party.
“It took a lot of makeup to make us look this young,” Costello joked about Hershelman’s CD cover photo of band members, who are all in their 60s.
The musicians started playing together three years, Rideout said, after he met Costello when they both were playing Key City’s Radio Christmas show.
Rideout also recruited Fristoe, a neighbor who was a closet guitar player; Donnie, as friends call him, hadn’t played in public before.
Judging from the level the band performed the music, including three-part harmony a capella on some of the choruses, the musicians have been putting in long hours to polish their renditions.
‘Starting to gel’
“It’s really starting to gel,” Rideout said.
Trevor Hanson, who plays classical guitar at Alchemy and Ichikawa, and Irish folk music with the Discovery Bay Pirates, said he met Costello at Crossroads music store in Port Townsend.
When Stymie’s Bar & Grill in Sequim needed someone at the last minute to play on St. Patrick’s Day last year, Hanson called Costello.
Although they had never played together before, the duo hit it off and ended up playing an extra hour, Hanson said.
Since then, he’s followed Shady Grove’s progress.
“I’m really excited about what’s happening here,” Hanson said of the audience response at Sunday’s show. “This is the best I’ve ever heard them.”
Alex Kunz, 15, who helped sell CDs at the show, is a mandolin student of Rideout’s.
But the youngest member of the audience was 7-month-old Vincent Costello, Larry’s grandson.
Vincent sat in grandmother Carol Costello’s lap and managed to stay awake through the second set, then hit the bottle and fell sleep.
Shady Grove was not only proficient but indefatigable — the band played for three hours with only two short breaks, doing up to 20 songs at a stretch.
The band’s CD, “One More Song,” also is a bargain: 16 songs for $15.
“You get 15 songs for a dollar each and one song free,” Rideout said.
Besides being a folk music fan, Jim Harris said there is a reason he is so familiar with Kingston Trio songs.
A retired teacher, he taught in Europe and North Africa and, in the 1970s, was headmaster of an international school in Arnhem, Holland.
(The school, incidentally, was one of the main locations for the film “A Bridge Too Far” when Harris was there. Lunching with Sean Connery was not unusual, Harris said, nor was having Gene Hackman hang out in your attic or meeting Liv Ullmann.)
The school, which was kindergarten through sixth, didn’t have a music teacher, so for the annual musical production, Harris used the soundtrack of Kingston Trio’s greatest hits album and wrote words to fit that year’s play.
Pirates, hobbits
One year, the musical had a pirate theme, he said; another year, it was hobbits, but the songs were all sung to the accompaniment of the album.
“The kids all knew the Kingston Trio music,” Harris said.
Costello said he met some young people from Germany recently and gave them copies of “One More Song” as a gift.
He got a Facebook message relaying their thanks, along with a note that Shady Grove’s music was being played in Frankfort, Germany.
“We are international,” Costello announced.
Costello, who has lived in Port Townsend since 1975, heard the Kingston Trio play in Port Townsend.
According to Carol Costello, Larry had played in a Kingston Trio clone band called the Cavaliers in eighth grade.
When he saw his idols in person at the Back Alley, he waited until almost the end of the performance before daring to venture up and ask if he could sing with the musicians. They agreed.
“It was one of the highlights of his life,” Carol said.
Harris said that three weeks after the Kingston Trio played the Back Alley, the Limelighters came to town.
The cover charge at the Back Alley was the same: $12, but only 12 people showed up.
“One More Song” is available in Port Townsend at Crossroads Music, 2100 Lawrence St., and the Bayview Restaurant, 1539 Water St.; and at Oak Bay Animal Hospital, 975 Oak Bay Road in Port Hadlock.
For more information, visit www.shadygrovetheband.com or phone Chet Rideout at 360-385-6698.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
