Editing Alex Hassilev (section)

==Early life==
Hassilev was born in France, of Russian heritage,{{R|laobit}} and educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard. He spoke fluent French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian and "could sing in over a dozen languages".{{R|Profile 1}} After a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, Hassilev did some acting and was credited with a role as singer-guitarist in the 1959 movie ''[[A Bucket of Blood]]''.{{R|Early acting}} Hassilev has said of this movie, that "unlike most films the horror in this movie was intentional." He later reflected that he only attended Harvard because [his parents] "considered it the status school&nbsp;... [but].&nbsp;... considers himself to be the antithesis of the Ivy League folk singer".{{R|Virtuoso}}

In the late 1950s, Hassilev joined [[Glenn Yarbrough]] as a lessee of a club in [[Aspen, Colorado]], called the Limelite, and later the two performed regularly. At one of their shows at the Cosmo Alley, Hassilev and Yarbrough impressed [[Lou Gottlieb]], an original member of the [[Gateway Singers]] who had also written several musical arrangements for [[the Kingston Trio]].{{R|Tallahassee}} At that time Gottlieb, had "just completed his doctoral thesis on 15th century cyclic masses&nbsp;... [and]&nbsp;... suggested that the three of them team up to make demos for the Kingston Trio, with Gottlieb himself providing arrangements of traditional folk songs and some original material". They later named themselves after the Limelite club owned by Yarbrough and Hassilev.{{R|All music}}