The Kingston Trio - Sunny Side (1963)

The success of their previous album and the single "Reverend Mr. Black" led to the apparently rushed recording of this album. For all of the feeling of a slapped together LP, right down to the crude artist's drawing of the group (which looks like the art found on the cover of one of those crude Coronet LPs), the singing and playing are fine. The major problem with the album is that too many of the songs here sound like they're stuck at (or shouldn't have gotten past) the demo stage, and probably wouldn't have if the group had been given the time to cut a proper LP. "Rider," "Sing Out," and "Desert Pete" work well; "Jackson," which was later a hit for Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, is interesting to hear; and "Ballad of the Thresher" is a decent example of the group embracing topicality in a song about the lost nuclear submarine. It was reissued in April 2000 paired with Kingston Trio #16.~Sunny Side! Review by Bruce Eder