My friend John Stewart died this morning [January 19th, 2008] in San Diego, California ... in the hospital he was born in on September 5th, 1939 ... 68 years ago.

John suffered a massive stroke or brain aneurysm early Friday morning in San Diego. Doctors had determined that any difficult surgical remedies that might have been employed to save his life-- even if successful -- would had left John immobile and unable to speak. It wasn't generally known, but doctors had told John in recent years that he had apparently experienced various minor strokes, likely in his sleep.

In the early 1970s, Stewart wrote "Cooler Water, Higher Ground," one of his many highly personalized songs, in which he sang "I was born in the heat of September, and I died in the cool of the fall ... borning and dying we do all the time, it don't mean much of nothing at all." But his passing will mean so much, to so many, around the world.

John's all-time companion and wife Buffy, and his children -- Mikael, Jeremy, Amy, and Luke -- were at his side when he passed peacefully around 7:30 a.m. Pacific time. John never regained consciousness after collapsing in his hotel room late Thursday/early Friday, and was not in pain during his time at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.

John Stewart leaves a compilation of musical excellence unparalleled in his time. He recorded over 45 solo albums following his seven years in the Kingston Trio, 1961-67. He worked all the way up to the time of his death, having recently completed his latest as-yet untitled album. It is estimated that he wrote more than 600 unique and highly personal songs, many of them constituting a modern musical history of his beloved America.

He leaves behind a wide-ranging group of fans who have felt a passion for him and his music that bordered on fanaticism. Chief among them are the Bloodliners, a hard-core legion of supporters who communicated via computer everyday in discussing John and his career.

It can now be said that John was told last summer, shortly before Trio Fantasy Camp 8, that he was suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer's disease. That news was kept from the public in the hope that his condition would stabilize and allow him to work in the following years until the disease took its eventual toll. Indeed he had stabilized in the time since Camp, and was able to bravely perform several concert shows and do the studio work on his new album.

If there is a blessing in his passing, it is that he will now be spared the true ravages of that awful disease. He will not suffer the gradual personal mental reductions caused by Alzheimer's, though he had already lost his ability to drive, owing to California law. In fact, one of the new songs on the upcoming album is "I Can't Drive Anymore," a typically honest and emotional personal reaction to his situation.

Speaking personally, losing John creates a hole in my soul. I had agonized for months over the Alzheimer's prognosis. But after talking with many of his friends and family yesterday, I can see that -- facing a debilitating future -- it was -- and this is so hard to say --the right time for him to go. This is what he would have wanted, in light of what he ultimately faced.

Johnny always drew a crowd, and there was a gathering of friends at the hospital in San Diego over the past two days. Starting with Nick Reynolds from John's Trio days and his wife Leslie, John's entire family had been joined at his bedside by longtime sidekick Dave "Dave" Batti, John Hoke, Chuck McDermott, Greg Jorgenson, John's boyhood best friend George Yanok, who flew in from Nashville upon hearing the news, and other family, friends, and acquaintances. A kind of "Irish wake" was held throughout Friday and into early Saturday, with the friends and old bandmates sharing many of the limitless John Stewart stories.

I'm so sorry to have to write this, to have to tell you this. Outside my closest family members, John was the brightest light of my life. This creates an emptiness that can never be filled. If you are tempted to mourn to great lengths today, as so many of us surely are, we have to remind ourselves of what a gift he was for all of us. And how lucky we all were to have had the opportunity to have shared in his amazing music and stage artistry. We might, each of us, have missed him, you know. But--lucky for us--we didn't.

He hated moping around, and looked for the bright side, and laughter, in everything. He wouldn't even allow me to be 'down' about having cancer. He even berated me at one point about it. He had amazing drive, and a creative force within him that was stunning in its intensity and breadth. And some day his amazing personal songs will be discovered by a mass audience, and the world at large, and he will receive the wide-ranging accolades he was denied in his time.

Trust me. Think about him today, listen to that incredible body of his work, think about the electric personality we experienced in EVERY show he did .. in the literally thousands and thousands of performances in which he gave us everything he had, stretching from venues big and small, from coast to coast, from 1957 to 2007.

You will smile when you do; and eventually laugh when recalling the magic of his art and personality. We will not see his like again, but we have been so lucky to have shared him across the decades -- and found each other through him, because of him. It does not feel like it, but we are the lucky ones today. That will become evident in the time to come.

Because, like you ... I loved him too.

Tom DeLisle

Tom Drake died Friday, August 8, 2008 after battling cancer. Tom wrote six songs with Bob Shane during the Guard years, including the classic "White Snows Of Winter." During the Stewart years he co-wrote another classic, "Olly Olly Oxen Free" with Rod McKuen, specifically for the Trio.

Tom and Bob met in the spring of l958, before Tom Dooley hit the charts. They became instant friends. Tom always said "Knowing Bob Shane changed my life." When Tom Dooley hit Tom was living in Sausalito. He and Bob had became great friends and had a lot of fun hanging out together. Besides writing songs they spent time speeding in Bob's newest fast car to the nearest race track among other adventures. They remained close friends for over fifty years. Tom's son Steven is Bob's Godson. One of Tom's other sons is named Robert after Bob.

Because of Bob's influence, Tom formed The Good Time Singers folk group and starred on The Andy Williams Show for 3 seasons and recorded two albums for Capitol Records before hanging up the guitar and becoming an awarding winning Screenwriter. He wrote for many successful TV series, was a staff writer for Gene Roddenbury and wrote the cult favorite horror film,Terror Train, which was a top five box office hit for over 8 weeks and is still shown in horror film festivals all over the world.

Tom was a man of many talents who managed to do every thing he wanted in life with great enthusiasm and humor. He was married to his wife Sally for over 50 years, had four sons and 6 grandchildren. Tom's wit and charm and giving good nature will be sorely missed.

We are sad to announce that Enrico Banducci, 85, died October 9th, 2007. Enrico was the founder of the famous Hungry i nightclub in San Francisco and was a pioneer in live show business.

He gave many people their first boost in the business, including Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Professor Irwin Corey, TheGateway Singers, Bud & Travis, Woody Allen and of course The Kingston Trio.He was a great man, a wonderful character and an inspiration to us all.

Mike Solner, a Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles, has written a screen play on the Hungry i Nightclub, and we really hope it becomes a movie. The world should be aware of Enrico's contributions to live entertainment.

Werber made pop music history as the savvy manager of the Kingston Trio, turning three clean-cut college boys into superstars, the biggest singing group in the world in the early '60s, igniters of the folk music boom.

He was the charismatic creator of the Trident, a jazz club that he transformed into a legendary Sausalito fern bar and organic restaurant, a "Hooters for hippies," as one former employee describes it, where the braless waitresses wore see-through blouses, a young Robin Williams worked as a bus boy, the Rolling Stones celebrated Mick Jagger's birthday, Janis Joplin had a special table by an arched window overlooking the bay and Woody Allen shot a scene for his 1972 movie, "Play It Again, Sam."

Even as a child, Werber's life was extraordinary. Born in Cologne, Germany, he arrived in the United States in 1941 with his father. The story goes that they escaped from a concentration camp after the elder Werber was spared execution - along with his son - because he was such a good cook that the Nazi commander didn't want to lose him.

In San Francisco, Werber developed a talent for show business, managing Enrico Banducci's famed North Beach nightclub, the Hungry i. During that time, he went to see an unknown collegiate singing group, the Kingston Trio, discovering them at a little club in Redwood City, the Crack Pot.

"Somebody had told him about us and he loved what he saw," remembers the Kingston Trio's Bob Shane, now retired and living in Phoenix. "We made up a contract with him on a paper napkin."

Shane credits Werber with coming up with the Trio's button-downed image and squeaky-clean persona. "As much as we were, he was responsible for getting us started," he said. "He helped mold us, got us rehearsing on a regular basis, got us working on a show, helped us get our outfits together so that we'd be a visual act, too. We went to Stanford, so they had us billed as America's clean-cut college kids, but I don't think any of us even knew one."

Werber may have been a wild flower child, but Nick Reynolds, another original member of the Kingston Trio, thanked him for keeping the group's phenomenal success in perspective, encouraging them to invest their fortune - in the Trident, in a number of homes and properties in Marin and San Francisco, including the Columbus Tower, now owned by Francis Ford Coppola.

"We were the biggest group in the world for four or five years," Reynolds said from his home on San Diego's Coronado Island. "We had five albums in the top 10 at one time. The main thing I can say about Frank is that he kept us safe. We stayed in San Francisco, we didn't move to L.A. We never had any mob scenes around us. We all kept our sanity. I know I did. He kept us together. He was like a second father to me."

When he died of heart failure at home last month, he had his four children around him - Chala, Mishka, Aari, Bodhi - and a number of others who were close to him.

"We all gave him parting gifts of water from the spring, crystals, beads, Buddhas, cologne, good drink and good smoke," Chala said in an e-mail. "He had the ashes of his dog, Jet, at his feet. He was the center of everybody's universe. He was very much himself to the end."