NICK REYNOLDS

There were many musicians who played the four string tenor guitar over the years, but none were as visible or as well known as Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio. 

 

Nick's small four string guitar was on the cover of almost every Kingston Trio Album. And when the Trio performed on television for millions of viewers, musicians took note of Nick's guitar and were moved to find out what kind of instrument it was and buy one for themselves, so they too, could play like The Kingston Trio and sound like Nick Reynolds.

 

Nick loved the sound of the small guitar and put a capo on the fifth fret to get an even higher pitched sound. It became The Kingston Trio's sound.

 

When you ask a tenor guitar player of a certain age, how they first became interested in the tenor guitar, the answer is, in most cases, "because Nick Reynolds played one."

 

It didn't matter that Nick tuned his tenor like the top four strings of a six string guitar because he was used to playing a baritone ukulele. Followers would acquire a tenor guitar at a music store, and in those days, all major instrument companies made a tenor guitar, or a tenor guitar might be special ordered along with a Mel Bay tenor banjo book to learn the chords.

Long before the "internet" all information was word of mouth.

"It's a tenor guitar! It's tuned like a tenor banjo! Buy a tenor banjo book!"

 

It is only natural that the personal most responsible, totally without intention, to have made the most serious impact on the promotion and growth of the tenor guitar, the person who most single-handedly put this obscure instrument on the map, and the person who has had such an influence on myself, members of The Tenor Guitar Registry, and whose presence is felt at every Tenor Guitar Gathering of any kind, anywhere, should be the very first musician inducted to the Tenor Guitar Hall of Fame.

 

And so, on this day of June 3, 2011, in the town of Astoria, Oregon, on behalf of tenor guitarists all around the world, we hereby proudly induct Nick Reynolds as the first inductee to The Tenor Guitar Hall of Fame