Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Kingston Trio do "Zombie Jamboree"

Cory Doctorow at 10:42 am Sat, May 16, 2009

— FEATURED —

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Archive of documents from Rios Montt genocide trial, overturned 10 days after guilty verdict

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle

Here's the Kingston Trio performing "Zombie Jamboree," a favorite song around our place. I'm partial to Harry Belafonte's version, not to mention Noel Anthony's wicked calypso version.

File under "Music to play Left 4 Dead to."

The Kingston Trio: Zombie Jamboree (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  Happy Mutants • music

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • Shelby Davis

    Yeah! I have this on vinyl! Their voices still sound great!

  • Anonymous

    I prefer Rockapella’s cover of this. Acapella awesomeness!

  • nanuq

    The title seems misleading. Where are the zombies?

  • Anonymous

    I second the Rockapella version. It’s great! The version of their album “Primer” is the best!

  • Anonymous

    I really prefer Leftover Salmon’s version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc3dC_o_-Ww

  • zeroy

    The Kingston Trio were about as hip as my parents were willing to venture in the early sixties. Still this song remains as a childhood favorite.

  • Anonymous

    do you know this version from rockapella?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2c8zUwELPk&feature=related

    pedro noizyman
    são paulo – brazil

  • Anonymous

    Sad the younger set did not get a chance to see the original Kingston Trio.. At least somebody heard the originals (Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane) on vinyl, and on the vinyl the voices are great…but this video is of the umpteenth genesis of the group using the same name (sorry Mack Bailey).. Nice that they are singing the old songs, but the voices and the life in the originals is just not there..

  • takeshi

    Louis Farrakhan also did it.

    http://claytoncounts.com/neato2/Charmer%20-%20Zombie%20Jamboree.MP3

  • dragonfrog

    I totally read that as “Kingston trio perform at a Zombie Jamboree”, rather than “Kingston Trio sing Zombie Jamboree”

  • bjimba

    Another interesting cover version is Harry Nilsson’s, from the 1976 “That’s the Way It Is” album.

  • elguapostrikes

    Kingston Trio? I’m pretty sure you mean The Folksmen!

  • RikF

    My Left4Dead top track is Island of the Zombie Women. The version I have is the top cover by The Horatii, an (afaik) defunct goth band, but my search continues for the original (on vinyl or even just mp3) by the 3D Invisibles!

  • Yoder

    @11 – Beat me to it. My first thought was that I’d pay actual money to hear Harry Shearer sing this.

  • Big Ed Dunkel

    Zombie Jamboree and lots of bran.

  • Billy Blight

    I ♥ the Trio.

  • NuttyIndustries

    GRAMMAR: The Game

    I wrote this educational karaoke/grammar game about 5 years ago (Flash). It prominently features the musical stylings of Mr. Harry Belafonte and his rendition of Zombie Jamboree.

    Note, if you actually try to play the game, use the number-pad instead of clicking on the parts of speech with the mouse. I left a lot of bugs inside :(

    Enjoy

  • Roy Trumbull

    The song is the Kingston Trios but none of the originals are left.
    I was in a joint on Lombard Street with lots of glass. I’d just MCed a concert and was having a midnight snack with two of the performers. Up pulls this sports car and out comes John Stewart, one of the early replacements in the Trio. He knew one of the singers I was with. Tales were told. Then he showed us his schedule for concerts and air travel. It was about three pages single spaced. That was about 1963. The guys I was with had that look, “Why him? Why not me?”

  • Vnend

    Cory, come to Darkover (http://www.darkovercon.org/ and this year we have Emma Bull and Will Shetterly as GsOH), Clam Chowder does a great cover of the song, and the conga line wraps around the ballroom.