Randy Sparks, who gave folk music a big choral sound, dies at 90

Randy Sparks, a folk music maestro who crafted choral odes, ballads and ditties of droll wit such as “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio” during the 1960s folk revival and who nurtured a host of future stars including Kenny Rogers and John Denver, died Feb. 11 in San Diego. He was

90.

Sparks had health problems including heart trouble, said his son, Cameron Sparks. Sparks, who lived in Mokelumne Hill, California, was under medical care at his son’s home.

Amid the range of folk and roots music that flourished before the rock revolution — from the activist strains of Pete Seeger to the pop-style sound of the Kingston Trio — Sparks flexed his versatility. He defied easy labeling as a songwriter and leader of troupes including the New Christy Minstrels and the Back Porch Majority.

Those groups became Sparks’ laboratory for his Americana songbook, which was deeply influenced by the storytelling lyricism and harmonic mixes of his idol, Burl Ives. The revolving makeup of

Sparks’ ensembles also was a steppingstone for some star-studded alumni including country great Rogers, singer-songwriter Kim Carnes and Gene Clark, a founding member of the folk-rock band the Byrds. A longtime member, Barry McGuire, is known for his version of the 1965 antiwar anthem “Eve of Destruction” written by P.F. Sloan.

Sparks came across another young singer in the 1960s by the name of Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., whom Sparks let stay rent-free at an apartment above his garage in Los Angeles and, according to Sparks, persuaded him to change his name to John Denver — although Denver long asserted that his name was an homage to his love for the Rocky Mountains.

Sparks helped bring a new dimension to modern folk music by literally thinking big.

In 1960 in Vancouver, Sparks came across a biography of the 19th-century American song-weaver Stephen Foster, whose works such as “Oh! Susanna” and “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” were made popular by a band known as Christy’s Minstrels.

Sparks was intrigued by the dozen or more musicians used for harmonies and overlapping tones. He gave the concept a reboot.

The New Christy Minstrels became an evershifting collection of about 10 singers and musicians. The “big band of folk music,” said some promoters. The group’s rise was so swift that Sparks said he barely had time to change from jeans to tuxedos.

The group headlined at Carnegie Hall in New York, Cocoanut Grove in Boston and Hollywood’s Greek Theater. The New Christy Minstrels then found a wider audience with songs getting radio play such as 1963′s “Green, Green” (co-written with McGuire) and the haunting “Today,” which was part of the soundtrack for the 1964 film comedy “Advance to the Rear.”

Randy Lloyd Sparks was born on July 29, 1933, in Leavenworth, Kansas, and was raised in Okland, California. Sparks studied zoology at San Diego State University without finishing his degree. He entered the Navy in 1956 and joined up with another sailor, Ralph Grasso, for Navy talent contests. They won twice and landed television appearances on “The Bob Hope Show” and others.