What always seems to be forgotten about the early Kingston Trio, is that they made a conscious decision to record songs that had been written by singers who had been blacklisted, thus providing a nice hefty royalties check to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hayes, and so on. While Pete was known to complain about the folk stylings of the KT, Lee Hayes responded by joking that the royalties from the Kingston Trio had "kept Pete in beans"!

And, while Pete may have been openly scornful of the KT, it did not stop him from assisting Dave Guard on several song arrangements.

I'm glad that mention had been made of The Easy Riders; but there seems to have been no mention yet of The Tarriers (with Alan Alda and Eric Darling), as well as The Gateway Singers (with Lou Gottlieb and Travis Edmondson). Both groups preceded The Kingston Trio, and were amongst the first pop music groups to feature an integrated ensemble.