Nick Reynolds, a founding member of the popular 1960s folk group The Kingston Trio, died Wednesday in San Diego.
He was 75.
In the 1950s, the group helped drive the folk music revival that paved the way for protest folk performers such as Bob Dylan Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Family members told the Los Angeles Times that Reynolds had been hospitalized in recent weeks with acute respiratory disease and a variety of other illnesses.
His family chose to take him off life support.
The group's recording of the tragic 19th century folk ballad "Tom Dooley" went to No. 1 in 1958.
Reynolds typically handled the middle part of the trio's scintillating three-part harmonies, sometimes adding congas and other percussion accents.
Nicholas Wells Reynolds was born July 27, 1933, in San Diego.
After graduating from Coronado High School in 1951, he attended the University of Arizona and San Diego State before enrolling at Menlo College near San Francisco.
Reynolds is survived by his wife, two sons, two daughters and two sisters.