Bit of historical thread creep, but to answer Dave's question, I think timing had a lot to do with it.

I was singing at a coffeehouse (regularly employed and actually paid) in Seattle early in 1959. Bob started dropping in and I'd ask him to do a guest set or two. Over a couple of weeks this evolved into Bob and me swapping songs in front of the audience, then, for kicks, we tried a couple of duets. The audience loved it and begged for more, so we figured, what the heck. We started singing together regularly, and subsequently got asked to do concerts at Seattle University, Grays Harbor College, and the University of Washington, then a TV show. It looked like we had something pretty good going.

Contemporaneously, the Kingston Trio had just burst on the scene. Both Bob and I had been playing guitar and singing folk songs before the members of the Kingston Trio met, and what we were doing had nothing to do with the Kingston Trio. We would have sung together whether the KT existed or not. But of course, the immediate popularity of the KT certainly didn't hurt us when it came to getting gigs.

What was the problem was that the KT immediately spawned a horde of imitations in every university frat house and high school. Forming a "folk music group" a la the KT was suddenly in!. All of these groups chose incredibly cutsy-poo names (the Steel-Drivers, the Pioneers, the Spinners, etc, etc, ad nauseum).

No matter how ill-prepared they were -- most of them had been playing together for only a couple of weeks, were just learning to play their instruments, and getting all their songs from KT records -- they were running around looking for singing jobs! A few turned out to be pretty good (e.g., The Brothers Four), but most of them were incredibly bad.

Bob and I, feeling that we needed a name too, groped around and settled on "The Nor'westers." But after seeing the first concert poster to use the name, we suddenly felt that it put us into the same pot as this bunch of newcomers. By now, we were already known as "Bob and Don" or Don and Bob" -- just a couple of guys who sang together -- and people who knew us that way might not know who "The Nor'westers were." So we dropped it.

Actually, it was a perfectly good name. If Bob and I ever decide to fold up our lap-robes, wipe the Geritol stains off our chins, and totter out on stage again, we might just use it.

Don Firth