The group's first album, Capitol T996 "The Kingston Trio", was recorded over a three-day period in February 1958 and released in June that year, just as the Trio was beginning its engagement at the hungry i. Gilmore had made two important supervisory decisions as producer — first, to add the same kind of "bottom" to the Trio's sound that he had heard in live performance and consequently recruiting Purple Onion house bassist Buzz Wheeler to play on the album, and second to record the group's songs without the secondary orchestral accompaniment that was nearly universal (even for folk-styled records) at the time.