Folk music brought a different rhythm to my college years

My college days coincided with the rise of folk music and the emergence of "hippie" counter-culture.

One didn't cause the other, but they surely formed a strong symbiotic bond. Without both, neither that music nor the Haight-Ashbury intersection of San Francisco would've gone as high as they did, pun intended.

What threw me back 50 years was a news blurb that Nick Reynolds died. He was a founding member of the Kingston Trio, the first folk group to become BMOC (big music on campus).

I loved their music, especially "Tom Dooley."

Shortly after the song gained popularity, I found a book about the origins of the song's storyline. According to the author, the events, as represented in the ballad, were true.

Tom Dooley was the victim of a classic love triangle. Anybody who watches daytime television will be very familiar with that great American pastime.

He's buried in Wilkes County in the western part of North Carolina. One of these years if I'm in that area, I think it'd be a worthwhile mission to find his stone.

I haven't listened to The Kingston Trio in years. I went online to their Web site searching for a CD to buy, and what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Among the displays was the album cover that I remember being on the wall of my Chapel Hill apartment.

Truth be told, apartment is an overstatement. "Hovel" better describes it.

Back then, my idea of a cool pad was album covers lining the walls and curtains of Confederate flags. I'm sort of embarrassed to reveal my total lack of taste to 50,000 readers, but that's how it was - and probably still is.

Folk music was brand new to me. In my 1950s world, records were good for one thing - dancing.

You listened in the car on the way to the beach to dance. Our ears and feet were wired directly to each other without a detour through a brain.

Mine are still hooked up after all these years. My car jerks fast and slow down the highway when I'm listening to Lloyd Price or Jackie Wilson. My right foot loves to dance on the gas pedal.

But for the first time, I enjoyed songs not meant for dancing. Kingston Trio music was only good for listening and bongo-drum tapping on the edge of a chair.

Like "Tom Dooley," most of their songs told stories of some sort. "The Wreck of the John B" was a sea adventure to banjo.

Sitting in a bar, there was no easier listening than "Scotch and Soda." Even today I can't think of that title without following it with "mud in your eye."

They paved the way for others like Peter, Paul and Mary.

My personal favorite happens to be a group few readers will recall. The Chad Mitchell Trio was a complete hoot.

I still sing one of their best songs to myself every now and then just to make sure I still remember it. "Lizzie Borden" did, in fact, take an ax, although I'm not sure there were 40 whacks.

It was only for listening. Nobody ever danced to "Lizzie" except maybe when "jump like a fish, jump like a porpoise, all join hands and habeas corpus" fell into cadence.

Another following in Kingston's footsteps was Bob Dylan. Of course, he remains a force of culture, even today.

But back then, his music was said to be the voice of the 1960s generation.

Personally, I never cared much for his stuff because they were so heavy with messages of those "make-love-not-war" times.

I should admit I was on the outside of this movement looking in. I wasn't a late-bloomer; I didn't bloom much at all.

Anheuser Busch and Seagram's made the only drugs I experimented with in college. Actually, it wasn't an experiment. I got it right the first time.

A byproduct of aging is that entertainers who added to my life are leaving.

Paul Newman recently exited the stage. One of his movie's themes is a huge favorite of mine. Jimmie Rogers singing "The Long, Hot Summer" is the best song of the South ever made.

The Kingston Trio is officially no more. Sometimes that human mortality thing is a major bummer. They did great stuff. Hang down your head.

Otis Gardner's column appears here each Wednesday.