Vocalist and guitarist Nick Reynolds was born Nicholas Wells Reynolds on July 27, 1933, in Coronado, CA, and thanks to his father's passion for guitar, spent his childhood surrounded by music. By the time he enrolled in Menlo College in Palo Alto, CA (he had previously attended San Diego State and the University of Arizona) in 1954 as a business major, Reynolds was a proficient guitar player, and meeting Bob Shane in an accounting class turned out to be a major turning point in his life. Shane had been playing on and off with his friend Dave Guard (both were born Hawaii and played music in high school together). After a few personnel changes and adjustments, the three began playing together as the Kingston Trio, gently merging calypso rhythms and folky harmonies with lightly rewritten traditional songs, and the result was a smooth yet casual and easily accessible acoustic sound. The trio eventually signed with Capitol Records and from 1957 through 1963, the Kingston Trio was simply the most commercially successful folk act in the world, generating a whole host of imitators. As the folk boom gave way to rock, though, the trio's sound no longer fit on pop radio, and the Kingston Trio, unwilling to change into something they weren't, officially disbanded in 1967. Reynolds moved to Oregon to raise a family. Starting in the '70s, various reconfigured versions of the Kingston Trio, usually headed by Shane, began to record and tour again. The original trio reunited in 1981, with later members John Stewart, George Grove, and Roger Gambill also on board, for a PBS reunion special that was also issued as a DVD. Reynolds next joined forces with Stewart and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham for the 1983 album Revenge of the Budgie. Later in the decade Reynolds moved back to California, and officially rejoined the Trio in 1987, touring with the group through 1999, when he retired for a second time. He died on October 1, 2008, in San Diego, CA from respiratory complications. ~ Steve Leggett