Post by erik on Nov 11, 2023 19:41:10 GMT -5
The first known instance of a popular song whose lyrics include the word "d**n" in it is in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight, courtesy of one of the top acts of the late 1950's/early 1960's folk music movement/scare.
GREENBACK DOLLAR (The Kingston Trio; Capitol; 1963)—Often given the credit, and sometimes the blame, for having kicked off the folk music revival/scare of the late 1950’s with their smooth version of the traditional folk ballad “Tom Dooley” in 1958, the Kingston Trio, which originally consisted of Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, and Bob Shane, racked up numerous Top 40 hits at a time when “real” rock and roll was in something of a doldrums. As with many groups, however, disputes did kind of wreak a bit of havoc on even the Kingston Trio. Guard, whose harmony voice and occasionally bluegrass-influenced banjo were part-and-parcel of some of the group’s hits, including 1959’s “M.T.A.”, was forced out in 1961 because of one such dispute. When Guard left in late 1961, to join the Whiskeyhill Singers (whose presence was much-advertised for the 1963 Cinerama Western film epic How The West Was Won), he was replaced by John Stewart, then a member of the Cumberland Three, one of the many male folk trios inspired by the Kingston Trio. With Stewart onboard, they were able to score a massive hit in 1962 with a Pete Seeger song that became a folk/protest standard of the ages in “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” The Trio, however, encountered a spot of trouble in their recording of the song “Greenback Dollar”, co-written by Oklahoma-born folk singer Hoyt Axton (whose mother Mae Boren Axton had written “Heartbreak Hotel”, the song that put Elvis Presley permanently on the map in 1956). The song, with its minimalist guitar chords and the group’s smooth harmonies, included the first-known use of the word “d**n” in any song on the radio (as in “And I don’t give a d**n about a Greenback Dollar/Spend it fast as I can”). A lot of radio stations at the time simply refused to play that song with that word in it; and it was released with a sharp guitar chord to replace “d**n”. Still, it didn’t stop the song from reaching #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1963, becoming an instant folk standard and giving Axton his first taste of success. But with the emergence of the Beatles, and with folk master Bob Dylan “going electric”, the Kingston Trio’s popularity declined; and the group’s first golden era, as it were, came to an end in 1967. Stewart, however, parlayed what he had learned as a member of the Kingston Trio into cult success via his 1969 proto-Americana album California Bloodlines, and his massive 1979 FM-rock hit single “Gold”.
GREENBACK DOLLAR (The Kingston Trio; Capitol; 1963)—Often given the credit, and sometimes the blame, for having kicked off the folk music revival/scare of the late 1950’s with their smooth version of the traditional folk ballad “Tom Dooley” in 1958, the Kingston Trio, which originally consisted of Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, and Bob Shane, racked up numerous Top 40 hits at a time when “real” rock and roll was in something of a doldrums. As with many groups, however, disputes did kind of wreak a bit of havoc on even the Kingston Trio. Guard, whose harmony voice and occasionally bluegrass-influenced banjo were part-and-parcel of some of the group’s hits, including 1959’s “M.T.A.”, was forced out in 1961 because of one such dispute. When Guard left in late 1961, to join the Whiskeyhill Singers (whose presence was much-advertised for the 1963 Cinerama Western film epic How The West Was Won), he was replaced by John Stewart, then a member of the Cumberland Three, one of the many male folk trios inspired by the Kingston Trio. With Stewart onboard, they were able to score a massive hit in 1962 with a Pete Seeger song that became a folk/protest standard of the ages in “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” The Trio, however, encountered a spot of trouble in their recording of the song “Greenback Dollar”, co-written by Oklahoma-born folk singer Hoyt Axton (whose mother Mae Boren Axton had written “Heartbreak Hotel”, the song that put Elvis Presley permanently on the map in 1956). The song, with its minimalist guitar chords and the group’s smooth harmonies, included the first-known use of the word “d**n” in any song on the radio (as in “And I don’t give a d**n about a Greenback Dollar/Spend it fast as I can”). A lot of radio stations at the time simply refused to play that song with that word in it; and it was released with a sharp guitar chord to replace “d**n”. Still, it didn’t stop the song from reaching #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1963, becoming an instant folk standard and giving Axton his first taste of success. But with the emergence of the Beatles, and with folk master Bob Dylan “going electric”, the Kingston Trio’s popularity declined; and the group’s first golden era, as it were, came to an end in 1967. Stewart, however, parlayed what he had learned as a member of the Kingston Trio into cult success via his 1969 proto-Americana album California Bloodlines, and his massive 1979 FM-rock hit single “Gold”.