Travelers 3

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The Travelers 3 were a vocal trio from Eugene, Oregon.

Eugene, Oregon City in Oregon, United States

Eugene is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is at the southern end of the verdant Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers, about 50 miles (80 km) east of the Oregon Coast.

Harmonizing male folk combos, in trios and quartets, were booming in the early 1960s in the wake of the success of the Kingston Trio. Elektra Records, then emerging as one of the most prominent American independent folk-oriented labels, made its first move into the territory with the Limeliters, whose self-titled LP gave the company its first Top Forty album. Although the Limeliters would make most of their early-1960s chart LPs for RCA, Elektra soon came up with another folk threesome, the Travelers 3. Appropriately enough, the trio recorded three long-players for the label, starting with The Travelers 3. They subsequently recorded one LP on the Capitol label.

Elektra Records record company and music label

Elektra Records is an American major record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk music and rock music between the 1950s and 1970s. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived as an imprint of Atlantic in 2009. As of October 2018, Elektra was detached from the Atlantic Records umbrella and reorganized into Elektra Music Group, once again operating as an independently-managed frontline label of Warner Music.

The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric (GE); however, in 1932, RCA became an independent company after GE was required to divest its ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit.

The group got together in Eugene, Oregon, where Charlie Oyama (banjo, guitar, ukulele) and Pete Apo (guitar, ukulele, drum) had moved from Hawaii to attend the University of Oregon (though Oyama and Apo had met before they came to the university, through Apo's brother). Teaming up with Dick Shirley (bass, guitar, and plastic toy flute), they went back to Hawaii to do a long residency at the Shell Bar (famous for its use in the 1959-63 TV detective series Hawaiian Eye), becoming the first folk act to work there.

(Source: Richie Unterberger, from CD cover insert)

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Bob Gibson (musician) American musician

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<i>The Limeliters Reunion, Vol. 2</i> 1976 live album by The Limeliters

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