Re: Gateway Singers/Kingston Trio chronology -- According to everything I've been able to find, the Kingston Trio didn't get together until 1957, and they were still in school at the time. Tom Dooley became a "hit song" late in 1958. Check the puff job here (makes it sound like they invented folk music in the basement of their frat house).

I can't find much info about the Gateway Singers in cyberspace, other than that some of their records have been re-issued on CD, and a few things about a few people (such as Gottlieb) who were in the group. There seems to be another group out now calling themselves the "Gateway Singers," but I got the impression they do gospel songs (as in "Pearly Gates" or something like that -- probably never even heard of the folk group).

I'm sure the Gateway Singers predated the Kingston Trio by a couple of years at the very least. The Weavers drew a big audience in the very late Forties and early Fifties. When they were blacklisted, the Gateway Singers jumped in pretty quickly to try to fill the hole. The Gateway Singers got started in the early Fifties, no later than the mid-Fifties. They had records out by then.

I was there. I remember. But I also check to make sure I'm remembering correctly.

Re: the gal from the "Michigan School of Big-Boned Women" -- I'm afraid I don't know. Sounds interesting.

Don Firth