The Kingston Trio, folk or 'folk': the Irish perspective on an American phenomenon
Hilary Bracefield (UU)
The Kingston Trio were, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a huge album-selling group in
USA and in many countries of the world. Their first album The Kingston Trio (1958) was in
the US charts for four years, and their next fourteen LPs all made the top ten. But in Ireland
and the UK their brand of easy-listening folk music was not a success at all. This paper
explores the music in their early albums and suggests reasons for their comparative failure to
break the Irish market.
cv: Hilary Bracefield has retired as Head of Music and lecturer in American Studies at the
University of Ulster, but remains on the academic music scene in various ways, including
writing on topics such as nationalism in music, politics and the serious composer, music in
Australia and New Zealand, and occasional papers on music in Ireland and USA