Seeing triple
A while back, the Chad Mitchell Trio played a show at the Spokane Coliseum and then took a brief hiatus from performing in their hometown.
That hiatus lasted almost 44 years. It ends Saturday when the trio steps onto the stage of the INB Performing Arts Center for their first Spokane show since LBJ was in the White House.
“We’re looking forward to it with a little bit of trepidation,” admitted Mike Kobluk, an original trio member. “These are our families and friends and we haven’t performed here since 1964.”
Mitchell and Kobluk are no longer fresh-faced Gonzaga University students, which is what they were when they formed the group in 1958. Yet their repertoire will be remarkably similar to that of their recording heyday (1961 to 1964), consisting of comic novelties, story songs and topical satires.
One of those songs will be truly topical: a reworking of their 1962 hit, “John Birch Society,” now called “George Bush Society.”
So their political convictions haven’t softened over the decades?
“Gotten stronger,” said Kobluk.
“I’ve probably gotten more radical,” said Mitchell. “I’ve mellowed, I think, but not in that way. I’ve mellowed in the way I behave toward people who have different views than myself.”
Mitchell is a retired real estate agent in Spokane and part-time activist, singer and actor (he has performed with the Spokane Civic Theatre). Kobluk retired in 2000 as the city of Spokane’s director of entertainment facilities.
Joe Frazier, who joined the group in 1960, is a semi-retired Episcopal priest in Big Bear, Calif. This is the same lineup that walked onto that Coliseum stage in 1964.
The Chad Mitchell Trio never played another Spokane date mainly because they were busy playing college campuses all over the country. They were riding high with radio hits “Marvelous Toy,” “John Birch Society” and “Lizzie Borden.”
Albums such as “Mighty Day on Campus” and “Slightly Irreverent” had turned them into, well, folk heroes. Sample lyric from the sarcastic “Alma Mater”: “We’ll miss the classrooms / where we learned / and effigies we burned.”
The folk trio soldiered on after Mitchell quit in 1965 and was replaced with a young unknown named John Denver. They didn’t call it quits until 1967.
Kobluk became the director of performing and visual arts for Spokane’s Expo ‘74. Frazier went to divinity school. Mitchell embarked on a solo career and landed in jail for five months in 1977 for smuggling 400 pounds of marijuana.
The Mitchell-Kobluk-Frazier lineup reunited for the first time in 1985 and has staged periodic reunions ever since. The trio now averages four to six performances a year.
They still have a surprisingly strong and loyal following, fueled by occasional tantalizing appearances on PBS specials.
“One reason we’ve been so successful is that we’ve performed so little,” said Mitchell, with a laugh. “We’re somewhat of a mystique act. We don’t play enough to get overexposed.”
Certainly not in Spokane.
Saturday’s concert came about because the trio is planning a three-DVD set, consisting of one disc of archival performances, one disc containing a 1987 PBS reunion show and a third disc that will include excerpts from their live show last Labor Day weekend in the resort town of Bayfield, Wisc., and the upcoming show in the city that spawned them.
The show will include special guest artist Tom Paxton, a giant ‘60s folk figure who figured prominently in the Chad Mitchell Trio’s career.
Paxton auditioned for the trio when original member Mike Pugh left in 1960. He didn’t get the job (which went to Frazier), but he ended up writing many of the songs the trio became known for, including “Marvelous Toy,” “What Did You Learn in School Today?” and “We Didn’t Know.”
Paxton will open Saturday’s show. The trio will then perform, alternating songs with TV clips, including their performances on the “Ed Sullivan Show” and “Hootenanny.” At the end, Paxton will come back out and perform with the trio.
The trio will be backed by a small combo; they never did play their own music. Jim McGuinn, later to be known as Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, was one of their first accompanists.
“Truthfully, there were probably better bands on our block than we were then,” said Mitchell. “We got lucky. But we could sing.”
By the way, this will be a chance for them to redeem themselves in their hometown. Mitchell still remembers what happened the last time they played here: The Spokesman-Review critic “took us to task for being too political.”
“I wrote a big, long rebuttal letter,” said Mitchell. “I said, ‘I’m sorry you’re offended,’ but I felt he didn’t understand what the folk movement was all about.”