M.T.A. - Music
M.T.A. by The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio
Artist Biography For The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio Is An American Folk Group That Helped Launch The Folk Revival Of The 1960s And Continued To Thrive Despite The Emergence Of Rock And Roll. The Kingston Trio Was Formed In 1957 In The Palo Alto California Area By Original Lineup Of Dave Guard 1934–1991 Bob Shane 1934–2020 And Nick Reynolds 1933–2008 Who Were Just Out Of College. Greatly Influenced By The Weavers The Calypso Sounds Of Harry Belafonte And Other Semi-Popular Folk Artists Such As The Gateway Singers And The Tarriers They Were Discovered Playing At A College Club Called The Cracked Pot By Frank Werber A Local Publicist Then Working At The Hungry I. He Became Their Manager And Secured Them A One-Shot Deal With Capitol Records. Their First Hit Was A Catchy Rendition Of An Old-Time Folk Song "Tom Dooley" Which Went Gold In 1958. It Was So Popular That It Entered Popular Culture As A Catchphrase Ella Fitzgerald For Example Parodies It During Her Recorded Version Of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer". It Won Them The First Grammy Award For Best Country & Western Performance In 1959. The Next Year They Won The First Grammy Award For Best Ethnic Or Traditional Folk Recording Category For The Album The Kingston Trio At Large. At One Point In The Early 1960s The Kingston Trio Had Four Albums At The Same Time Among The Top 10 Selling Albums A Record Unmatched For Nearly 40 Years. In Spite Of This They Had A Relatively Small Number Of Hit Singles. The Group's Music Was Simple And Accessible With Much Use Of Tight Vocal Harmony Signature Riffs Often Played On The Banjo And Repetitive Choruses. Capitol Producer Voyle Gilmore 1 Enhanced Their Vocal Sound To Great Effect With Reverb And The Relatively New Process Of Doubletracking In Which The Performers Sang Along With Their Own Pre-Recorded Part To Produce A Stronger Sound Than With A Single Voice In Part Due To A Natural Time Gap Of A Fraction Of A Second Between The Original Recording And The Overdubbed Part. At First Pairs Of Tape Recorders Were Used Then Later Multitrack Recording Machines To Produce The Effect. Guard Left The Band In 1961 As Part Of A Disagreement Over Its Musical Direction. He Formed The Group Whiskey Hill Singers And Was Replaced By John Stewart Who Led The Group Through Several More Years Of Popularity Until The Arrival Of The Beatles And British Invasion Rock Bands Pushed Them From The Charts. In 1967 The Trio Disbanded After A Final Performance At The Hungry I June 17 1967. Shane The Lone Member To Resist The Break-Up Of The Trio Started A New Group Aptly Named "The New Kingston Trio " In 1969. Eventually Shane Was Successful In Reaching A Contractual Agreement With His Former Partners Guard Reynolds And Werber To Secure And License Once Again The Original Name "The Kingston Trio" Unencumbered By The Adjective New In 1976. Blake Et Al. 1986. Shane Still Owns The Property Today 2006. For A Number Of Years In The 1980s Reynolds One Of The Original Three Members Rejoined Shane. In 2004 Shane Retired From The Group Due To Health Problems. He Was Replaced By Bill Zorn Who Had Been With Shane In An Iteration Of The Group Called The New Kingston Trio Zorn Also Has Been A Member Of The Limeliters. In 2005 Bobby Haworth A One-Time Member Of The Brothers Four Left The Group To Be Replaced By Rick Dougherty Who Also Had Been A Member Of The Limeliters. As Of 2006 The Kingston Trio Consisted Of George Grove Bill Zorn And Rick Dougherty. In October 2017 Grove Zorn And Dougherty Were Replaced As The Trio By New Licensees Reynolds And Marvin And Their Friend Tim Gorelangton. In 2018 Josh Reynolds Left The Group And Was Replaced By Bob Haworth Who Became A Member Of The Band For The Third Time. At The End Of 2018 Haworth Left The Group And Was Replaced By Don Marovich.
Frogtoon Music - Song Info: M.t.a.
The-Kingston-Trio - Greatest Hits
"M.T.A." Often Called "The MTA Song" Is A 1949 Song By Jacqueline Steiner And Bess Lomax Hawes. Known Informally As "Charlie On The MTA" The Song's Lyrics Tell An Absurd Tale Of A Man Named Charlie Trapped On Boston's Subway System Which Was Then Known As The Metropolitan Transit Authority MTA . The Song Was Originally Recorded As A Mayoral Campaign Song For Progressive Party Candidate Walter A. O'Brien. A Version Of The Song With The Candidate's Name Changed Became A 1959 Hit When Recorded And Released By The Kingston Trio An American Folk Singing Group. The Song Has Become So Entrenched In Boston Lore That The Boston-Area Transit Authority Named Its Electronic Card-Based Fare Collection System The "CharlieCard" As A Tribute To This Song. The Transit Organization Now Called The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority MBTA Held A Dedication Ceremony For The Card System In 2004 Which Featured A Performance Of The Song By The Kingston Trio Attended By Then-Governor Mitt Romney. The Song's Lyrics Tell Of Charlie A Man Who Boards An MTA Subway Car But Then Cannot Get Off Because He Does Not Have Enough Money For New "exit Fares". These Additional Charges Had Just Been Established To Collect An Increased Fare Without Replacing Existing Fare Collection Equipment. When He Got There The Conductor Told Him "One More Nickel."
Charlie Could Not Get Off That Train. The Song Goes On To Say That Every Day Charlie's Wife Hands Him A Sandwich "as The Train Comes Rumbling Through" Because He Is Stranded On The Train. It Is Probably Best Known For Its Chorus Did He Ever Return?
No He Never Returned
And His Fate Is Still Unlearn'd
He May Ride Forever
'neath The Streets Of Boston
He's The Man Who Never Returned. After The Third Line Of The Chorus In The Natural Break In The Phrasing Audiences Familiar With The Song Often Call Out "Poor Old Charlie!" Or "What A Pity!" The Song Based On A Much Older Version Called "The Ship That Never Returned" Or Its Railroad Successor "Wreck Of The Old 97" Was Composed In 1949 As Part Of The Election Campaign Of Walter A. O'Brien A Progressive Party Candidate For Boston Mayor. O'Brien Was Unable To Afford Radio Advertisements So He Enlisted Local Folk Singers To Write And Sing Songs From A Touring Truck With A Loudspeaker He Was Later Fined $10 For "disturbing The Peace" . One Of O'Brien's Major Campaign Planks Was To Lower The Price Of Riding The Subway By Removing The Complicated Fare Structure Involving Exit Fares—so Complicated That At One Point It Required A Nine-Page Explanatory Booklet. The Progressive Party Had Opposed The Public Buyout Of Boston's Streetcar System Which It Argued Enriched The Previous Private Ownership And Was Followed By Higher Fares To City Residents. In The Kingston Trio Recording The Name "Walter A. O'Brien" Was Changed To "George O'Brien" Apparently To Avoid Risking Protests That Had Hit An Earlier Recording When The Song Was Seen As Celebrating A Socialist Politician. The Song Has Charlie Boarding At The Kendall Square Station Now Called Kendall/MIT And Changing For Jamaica Plain. Kendall Is On What Is Now The Red Line The Lines Were Not Color-Coded Until 1965 So His "change For Jamaica Plain" Would Have Been At Park Street. There He Would Have Boarded A #39 Streetcar Later The Green Line "E" Branch For Jamaica Plain. In 1949 The Line Went All The Way To Arborway In Jamaica Plain But The Line Was Truncated To Heath Street At The Northern Edge Of Jamaica Plain In 1985. The Song Further Mentions That His Wife Visited Him Every Day At Scollay Square Which Today Is Government Center On The Green Line. The "Charlie Card"—the MBTA's Fare Card And Ticket System Introduced In 2006—depicts A Man On A Green Line Streetcar. The Chad Mitchell Trio Song "Super Skier" Written By Bob Gibson Used The Tune And Although Its Lyrics Have Nothing To Do With Subways Ends With A Call To "get Charlie Off The MTA".
Boston-Based Punk Rock Band Dropkick Murphys's Variation "Skinhead On The MBTA" With A Skinhead In Place Of Charlie Appeared On Their 1998 Album Do Or Die.
The Front Porch Country Band Recorded A Song Called "The Man Who Finally Returned" About Charlie Getting Off The MTA.
Bob Haworth A Member Of The Kingston Trio Wrote And Recorded A Song Called "MTA Revisited" In 2004.
They Might Be Giants Have A Similar Song About The New York City Subway Called "Token Back To Brooklyn" A Hidden Track On Their Album Factory Showroom.
Fred Small Wrote And Recorded A Parody Called "Sergei In The Milky Way" With The True Story Of Soviet Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov Who Was Temporarily Stranded In Space When The Soviet Union Broke Up. Small Mimicked The Kingston Trio Arrangement Almost Note For Note.
Frank Black Sings "You Can't Get Off Your Stop / Like Old Charlie On The MTA" In His Song "Living On Soul". The Computer Scientist Henry Baker References The Song In His Paper CONS Should Not CONS Its Arguments Part II Cheney On The M.T.A. Which Describes A Way Of Implementing Cheney's Algorithm Using C Functions That Like Charlie Never Return.
Guy L. Steele Jr. And Gerald Jay Sussman Also Make Reference To The Song In One Of The Lambda Papers When Discussing Functions Such As The Lisp Driver Loop Which Never Return Just Like Charlie In The Song.
In Malcolm In The Middle The Song Was Performed By Hal's Bluegrass Group The Gentleman Callers In The Episode "Long Drive".
In The Video Game Aion A Quest Involves Acquiring Enough Coins To Return To The Mainland. On Its Webpages Regarding The Two Quests ZAM Network Says "If You Spend Your Last Kinah Getting To Pandaemonium Or While In Pandaemonium You Can't Get Out Without The Teleport Fee Like Poor Old Charlie."
In The Webcomic Skin Horse The Team Makes A Field Trip To "St. Charlie Massachusetts" Which Turns Out To Be A Mobile City Built Inside A Giant Subway Train. Bess Lomax Hawes January 21 1921 – November 27 2009 Jacqueline Steiner September 11 1924 – January 25 2019
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Biography - The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio Is An American Folk Group That Helped Launch The Folk Revival Of The 1960s And Continued To Thrive Despite The Emergence Of Rock And Roll. The Kingston Trio Was Formed In 1957 In The Palo Alto California Area By Original Lineup Of Dave Guard 1934–1991 Bob Shane 1934–2020 And Nick Reynolds 1933–2008 Who Were Just Out Of College. Greatly Influenced By The Weavers The Calypso Sounds Of Harry Belafonte And Other Semi-Popular Folk Artists Such As The Gateway Singers And The Tarriers They Were Discovered Playing At A College Club Called The Cracked Pot By Frank Werber A Local Publicist Then Working At The Hungry I. He Became Their Manager And Secured Them A One-Shot Deal With Capitol Records. Their First Hit Was A Catchy Rendition Of An Old-Time Folk Song "Tom Dooley" Which Went Gold In 1958. It Was So Popular That It Entered Popular Culture As A Catchphrase Ella Fitzgerald For Example Parodies It During Her Recorded Version Of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer". It Won Them The First Grammy Award For Best Country & Western Performance In 1959. The Next Year They Won The First Grammy Award For Best Ethnic Or Traditional Folk Recording Category For The Album The Kingston Trio At Large. At One Point In The Early 1960s The Kingston Trio Had Four Albums At The Same Time Among The Top 10 Selling Albums A Record Unmatched For Nearly 40 Years. In Spite Of This They Had A Relatively Small Number Of Hit Singles. The Group's Music Was Simple And Accessible With Much Use Of Tight Vocal Harmony Signature Riffs Often Played On The Banjo And Repetitive Choruses. Capitol Producer Voyle Gilmore 1 Enhanced Their Vocal Sound To Great Effect With Reverb And The Relatively New Process Of Doubletracking In Which The Performers Sang Along With Their Own Pre-Recorded Part To Produce A Stronger Sound Than With A Single Voice In Part Due To A Natural Time Gap Of A Fraction Of A Second Between The Original Recording And The Overdubbed Part. At First Pairs Of Tape Recorders Were Used Then Later Multitrack Recording Machines To Produce The Effect. Guard Left The Band In 1961 As Part Of A Disagreement Over Its Musical Direction. He Formed The Group Whiskey Hill Singers And Was Replaced By John Stewart Who Led The Group Through Several More Years Of Popularity Until The Arrival Of The Beatles And British Invasion Rock Bands Pushed Them From The Charts. In 1967 The Trio Disbanded After A Final Performance At The Hungry I June 17 1967. Shane The Lone Member To Resist The Break-Up Of The Trio Started A New Group Aptly Named "The New Kingston Trio " In 1969. Eventually Shane Was Successful In Reaching A Contractual Agreement With His Former Partners Guard Reynolds And Werber To Secure And License Once Again The Original Name "The Kingston Trio" Unencumbered By The Adjective New In 1976. Blake Et Al. 1986. Shane Still Owns The Property Today 2006. For A Number Of Years In The 1980s Reynolds One Of The Original Three Members Rejoined Shane. In 2004 Shane Retired From The Group Due To Health Problems. He Was Replaced By Bill Zorn Who Had Been With Shane In An Iteration Of The Group Called The New Kingston Trio Zorn Also Has Been A Member Of The Limeliters. In 2005 Bobby Haworth A One-Time Member Of The Brothers Four Left The Group To Be Replaced By Rick Dougherty Who Also Had Been A Member Of The Limeliters. As Of 2006 The Kingston Trio Consisted Of George Grove Bill Zorn And Rick Dougherty. In October 2017 Grove Zorn And Dougherty Were Replaced As The Trio By New Licensees Reynolds And Marvin And Their Friend Tim Gorelangton. In 2018 Josh Reynolds Left The Group And Was Replaced By Bob Haworth Who Became A Member Of The Band For The Third Time. At The End Of 2018 Haworth Left The Group And Was Replaced By Don Marovich.
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16 Similar Artists To The Kingston Trio - Frogtoon Music
Peter, Paul & Mary B.J. Thomas The Weavers Judy Collins The Brothers Four Pete Seeger Tom Paxton Ian & Sylvia The Seekers The New Christy Minstrels Johnny Horton Tennessee Ernie Ford Loudon Wainwright III The Everly Brothers Gary "U.S." Bonds Gordon Lightfoot.
"M.T.A.", often called "The MTA Song", is a 1949 song by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes. Known informally as "Charlie on the MTA", the song's lyrics tell an absurd tale of a man named Charlie trapped on Boston's subway system, which was then known as the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The song was originally recorded as a mayoral campaign song for Progressive Party candidate Walter A. O'Brien. A version of the song with the candidate's name changed became a 1959 hit when recorded and released by The Kingston Trio, an American folk singing group.
The song has become so entrenched in Boston lore that the Boston-area transit authority named its electronic card-based fare collection system the "CharlieCard" as a tribute to this song. The transit organization, now called the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), held a dedication ceremony for the card system in 2004 which featured a performance of the song by the Kingston Trio, attended by then-governor Mitt Romney.
The song's lyrics tell of Charlie, a man who boards an MTA subway car, but then cannot get off because he does not have enough money for new "exit fares". These additional charges had just been established to collect an increased fare without replacing existing fare collection equipment.
When he got there the conductor told him,
"One more nickel."
Charlie could not get off that train.
The song goes on to say that every day Charlie's wife hands him a sandwich "as the train comes rumbling through" because he is stranded on the train. It is probably best known for its chorus:
Did he ever return?
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn'd
He may ride forever
'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.
After the third line of the chorus, in the natural break in the phrasing, audiences familiar with the song often call out "Poor Old Charlie!" or "What a pity!"
The song, based on a much older version called "The Ship That Never Returned" (or its railroad successor, "Wreck of the Old 97"), was composed in 1949 as part of the election campaign of Walter A. O'Brien, a Progressive Party candidate for Boston mayor. O'Brien was unable to afford radio advertisements, so he enlisted local folk singers to write and sing songs from a touring truck with a loudspeaker (he was later fined $10 for "disturbing the peace").
One of O'Brien's major campaign planks was to lower the price of riding the subway by removing the complicated fare structure involving exit fares—so complicated that at one point it required a nine-page explanatory booklet. The Progressive Party had opposed the public buyout of Boston's streetcar system, which it argued enriched the previous private ownership and was followed by higher fares to city residents. In the Kingston Trio recording, the name "Walter A. O'Brien" was changed to "George O'Brien", apparently to avoid risking protests that had hit an earlier recording, when the song was seen as celebrating a socialist politician.
The song has Charlie boarding at the Kendall Square station (now called Kendall/MIT) and changing for Jamaica Plain. Kendall is on what is now the Red Line (the lines were not color-coded until 1965), so his "change for Jamaica Plain" would have been at Park Street. There, he would have boarded a #39 streetcar (later the Green Line "E" Branch) for Jamaica Plain. In 1949, the line went all the way to Arborway in Jamaica Plain, but the line was truncated to Heath Street at the northern edge of Jamaica Plain in 1985.
The song further mentions that his wife visited him every day at Scollay Square, which today is Government Center on the Green Line. The "Charlie Card"—the MBTA's fare card and ticket system, introduced in 2006—depicts a man on a Green Line streetcar.
The Chad Mitchell Trio song "Super Skier", written by Bob Gibson, used the tune and although its lyrics have nothing to do with subways, ends with a call to "get Charlie off the MTA".
Boston-based punk rock band Dropkick Murphys's variation, "Skinhead on the MBTA", with a skinhead in place of Charlie, appeared on their 1998 album Do or Die.
The Front Porch Country Band recorded a song called "The Man Who Finally Returned" about Charlie getting off the MTA.
Bob Haworth, a member of The Kingston Trio, wrote and recorded a song called "MTA Revisited" in 2004.
They Might Be Giants have a similar song about the New York City Subway called "Token Back to Brooklyn", a hidden track on their album Factory Showroom.
Fred Small wrote and recorded a parody called "Sergei in the Milky Way" with the true story of Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov, who was temporarily stranded in space when the Soviet Union broke up. Small mimicked the Kingston Trio arrangement almost note for note.
Frank Black sings "You can't get off your stop / Like old Charlie on the MTA" in his song "Living on Soul".
The computer scientist Henry Baker references the song in his paper CONS Should Not CONS Its Arguments, Part II: Cheney on the M.T.A., which describes a way of implementing Cheney's algorithm using C functions that, like Charlie, never return.
Guy L. Steele, Jr. and Gerald Jay Sussman also make reference to the song in one of the Lambda Papers when discussing functions such as the Lisp driver loop which never return, just like Charlie in the song.
In Malcolm in the Middle, the song was performed by Hal's bluegrass group The Gentleman Callers, in the episode "Long Drive".
In the video game Aion, a quest involves acquiring enough coins to return to the mainland. On its webpages regarding the two quests, ZAM Network says, "If you spend your last Kinah getting to Pandaemonium or while in Pandaemonium, you can't get out without the teleport fee, like poor old Charlie."
In the webcomic Skin Horse, the team makes a field trip to "St. Charlie, Massachusetts", which turns out to be a mobile city built inside a giant subway train.
Bess Lomax Hawes (January 21, 1921 – November 27, 2009)
Jacqueline Steiner (September 11, 1924 – January 25, 2019)
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