The Folksmen
The Folksmen are a fictitious American folk music trio, conceived and performed by actors-comedians-musicians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. Originally created in 1984 for a Saturday Night Live sketch, the Folksmen have subsequently maintained an intermittent public presence for more than twenty-five years. The trio is best known for its depiction in the mockumentary film A Mighty Wind (2003), but has also made a number of meta-performances on stage and television, often in conjunction with the same creators' fictitious heavy metal band, Spinal Tap.
The fictional members of the Folksmen are:
During televised appearances, Barrows/Guest has also been seeing playing the autoharp (on "Barnyard Symphony", as performed on Saturday Night Live in 1984) and penny whistle (on "Corn Wine", in a deleted scene from A Mighty Wind). The studio recording of "Skeletons of Quinto", included on the film's soundtrack CD, included guest appearances from prominent musicians David Nichtern (nylon string guitar) and Marston Smith (cello).[7]
Fictional backstory[edit]
Origins and early fame[edit]
Characteristically, there is some dispute regarding the origins of the Folksmen. It was once claimed that the three members of the group originally met while they were freshmen at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.[8] However, in a 2003 interview, Mark Shubb and Alan Barrows stated that the two had actually met in late 1961 when both were studying at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. Barrows recalled that "we were both interested in folk music and there was a big folk music scene, as there were at many colleges."[9] They subsequently formed a musical duo known as The Twobadors. As recorded in an official band biography, later issued by Folktown Records, "In 1961, Vermont's own The Twobadors boarded a bus bound for New York City. Their first stop: Greenwich Village and The Folk Place. Inside, performing on the legendary stage was Jerry Palter".[10] Palter, who was performing there as a guitarist and backing singer, sang baritone. As Barrows noted, "Mark was a bass singer and I was a tenor singer, so we had lead—no glue, no middle. We ended up getting together, and it just clicked."[9] As their official bio put it, "Alan and Mark had found their mid-range, and the Folksmen were born".[10]
The newly renamed trio soon attracted the attention of folk music impresario Irving Steinbloom (1920–2003), who became their manager and signed them to Folktown Records – as Palter once put it, "THE label to be on."[9] In 1962, the group released the single "Old Joe's Place", which became a Top 70 hit and remains their best-known song. According to one source, the Folksmen remained together for 26 months (i.e. two and a half years), during which time they "played and sang their own brand of 'eclectified folk' music."[8] During this time they released no fewer than five studio albums. In a 2003 interview, Barrow recalled: "We figured that it would be amusing, at least to us, to have one word album titles, and we'd lop off the g's."[9] This, however, eventually came to a halt when, as Shubb noted in the same interview: "We violated our covenant with the audience with a record called Saying Something, which is two mistakes by my account – two words, and two g's. All of our goodwill and tradition and good luck went down the toilet."[9] Compounding the problem, that album was released on a lesser subsidiary label, Folktone Records, which, as Palter notes, was "a decent label – they just didn't have the distribution."[9] The album, elsewhere described as "their one and only experiment in electric",[10] was not a success, and the trio disbanded soon afterward. Relegated to the status of a minor footnote in the annals of American folk music, the Folksmen would later be characterised as "the group who were too popular to be purist and too purist to be popular."[8]
Reunions[edit]
Little is known of the activities of the band members after its demise around 1968. In the early 1970s, Alan Barrows began teaching a creative writing course at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia and also taught a yoga class.[1] In 1984, folk music impresario Albert Lilienthal (best known as the man who established the Eighty-eight Cent Hoot at the Seaman's Institute) invited the Folksmen to re-form for a special one-off appearance on Saturday Night Live.[1] At the time, it was noted that this was the first time that they had performed together in almost twenty years. Their appearance prompted a renewed interest in the group's work, and it was subsequently reported that "they are again becoming a popular late addition to folk festivals within a day’s auto travel of their homes."[8]
In 1992, the trio was scheduled to open for heavy metal band Spinal Tap during the latter's comeback concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. However, there was some concern that the rowdy audience might threaten the safety of the performers, so they did not appear; instead, the Folksmen attempted to recoup their costs by busking, performing a version of "Kumbaya" inside South Kensington tube station. It was later reported on Spinal Tap's website that the Folksmen had signed a four-month lease on a 1994 Chrysler minivan in anticipation of Spinal Tap's proposed 1996 Third World Tour, and there were rumours that the Folksmen might put out a CD.[8] However, neither the anticipated tour, nor the album, ever eventuated.
In June 1993, the Folksmen appeared at the Troubadors of Folk festival at UCLA in Los Angeles, where they performed on the same bill as Paul Stookey, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Roger McGuinn and others.[11] (Stookey allegedly saw the Folksmen and muttered, "Too close, too close.") Eight years later, they returned to UCLA to make a guest appearance at a tribute concert, The Harry Smith Project, dedicated to the late folk music anthologist Harry Everett Smith.[12]
In 2003, the Folksmen reunited far more prominently for another tribute concert, this time in honour of their former manager, Irving Steinbloom, who died that year. In the days leading up to the concert, the trio met for a reunion barbecue in upstate New York, during which they rehearsed several numbers from their back catalogue including "Blood on the Coal," "Corn Wine," "Loco Man," and "Skeletons of Quinto." At the concert itself, the group originally intended to open with "Never Did No Wanderin". Unbeknownst to them, The New Main Street Singers, another Steinbloom-managed group performing that night, end up performing the song. Reluctantly, The Folksmen instead performed only their hit, "Old Joe's Place," and the rarely heard "Barnyard Symphony."
Following the memorial concert, which was broadcast live on public television, bass player Mark Shubb came out as a Trans woman, and subsequently performed with the Folksmen in female attire. As she put it:
This change had the effect of making the Folksmen lineup identical (at least in terms of gender) to that of Peter, Paul and Mary.
The following songs have been mentioned or alluded to in various Folksmen media appearances, but have never been performed: