Whiskeyhill Singers In 1961, shortly after leaving the Trio, Guard formed a new group, The
Whiskeyhill Singers, with
Judy Henske,
Cyrus Faryar, and Kingston Trio bassist
David "Buck" Wheat. They toured and released an album and were asked to perform several folk songs on the
Academy Award-winning soundtrack of
How the West Was Won. Their voices can be heard on "The Erie Canal," "900 miles," "The Ox Driver," and "Raise A Ruckus Tonight". Cyrus Faryar can be heard performing solo on the track "Wanderin'" and Dave Guard on "Poor Wayfarin' Stranger". Judy Henske featured solo on "Careless Love". Judy Henske was eventually replaced by
Liz Seneff, but the Whiskeyhill Singers were disbanded in late 1962 after Guard left for Australia. Dave Guard and The Whiskeyhill Singers recorded their first album at Henry Jacobs' studio at
Sausalito, and it was released on the Capitol
record label. A second album was recorded at the same private studio, but it was never released. The soundtrack to
How the West Was Won was the group's final recorded appearance to be released commercially.
Dave's Place In late 1962 Guard moved with his family to
Sydney,
Australia, where he purchased a home overlooking the South Pacific Ocean at
Whale Beach. He performed both under his own name, anonymously and under an alias as a supporting musician and vocalist on Australian recording sessions with, among others,
Lionel Long, The Twiliters, The Green Hill Singers, Tina Date, and The Tolmen. He anonymously recorded many sound clips for radio and TV commercials. In 1964, Guard became the folk music consultant on the
ABC-TV program
Jazz Meets Folk. He hosted his own ABC-TV national
variety show, ''
Dave's Place, on Sunday nights for 13 weeks in late 1965. Four episodes of Dave's Place'' featured Judy Henske as a guest performer. Until his return to the
United States in 1968, Guard gave guitar lessons and, with the help of his wife, Gretchen, wrote a book,
Colour Guitar, describing a unique guitar teaching method relating music theory to a 12-valued chain of chords with color. Guard's relationship with the Trio remained strained while he was in
Australia. According to Guard, while he was in Australia, he was never in contact with Reynolds and Shane, and he never heard any of their albums. Following his return from Australia in 1968 and his wife's 1970 graduation from Stanford with a degree in art, Guard and his wife collaborated in researching, writing, and publishing a book on the ancient Irish folk tale,
Deirdre of the Sorrows, followed by a second book about a 400-year-old
Hawaiian folk tale.
Pure Gabby After the breakup of the Singers in 1961, Guard had returned to Hawaii. Always a folk music eclectic, Guard attempted to publicize the
slack-key sounds of Hawaiian folk guitar. Guard worked closely in Honolulu with slack-key guitar icon
Gabby Pahinui to record and produce
Pure Gabby, an album of classic Hawaiian melodies played with slack key tunings. Guard tried to introduce major record companies to
Pure Gabby, but met with little interest, and he shelved the project. In 1978, ten years after his return from Australia, at the urging of Singer colleague,
Cyrus Faryar, who had heard Guard's
Pure Gabby tapes, Guard contacted Hula Records of
Honolulu about
Pure Gabby, which agreed to take the recordings and distribute the album. ==Post-1978 career==