Kingston Crossroads: Check out the name on the masthead

Noticed that the 1/5/59 edition had THE in the magazine's title. This continued until Jan. 1961 when the name was changed to BILLBOARD MUSIC WEEK to emphasize its main focus was on music. That change only lasted 2 years and in Jan. 1963 the title became simply BILLBOARD.

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I was killing time looking at Billboard Magazine's archive of issues wen I came across an extremely odd picture. In the January 5, 1959 issue, page 37, there is a full page "Thank you" add from the Kingston Trio. It features a photo of the original Trio with the typical "Thank you for your support" message to D J's and a picture of the Trio. It is the photo that captured my attention. Nick and Bob have no visible instruments while Dave is holding a weird hybrid featuring a slotted head, wide (classical looking) fret board and a banjo body.

Playing with pictures years before photo-shop technology.