Folksmen, The: Aging
folk band reminiscent of the Kingston Trio that was scheduled
to open for Spinal Tap during the 1992 Royal Albert Hall show.
Instead, they played a nearby Tube stop for change because roadies
feared the energetic heavy metal crowd would tear them to pieces.
Four years later, according to the Tap Web page, the group signed
a four-month lease on a 1994 Chrysler minivan in anticipation
of Taps never-realized 1996 Third World Tour. Rumor had
it the trio might put out a CD. From the Web page: "Perhaps
best known, if at all, for their 1962 Top 70 hit Old Joes
Place, the Folksmen have earned a lasting place in folk
music history as the group too popular to be purist and too purist
to be popular. Jerry Palter, Alan Barrows and Mark Shubb met as
freshmen at Ohio Wesleyan and over the next 26 months played and
sang their own brand of eclectified folk music. Recently
reunited after more than two decades, they are again becoming
a popular late addition to folk festivals within a days
auto travel of their homes." A later Folksmen reunion was
chronicled in the documentary A Mighty Wind.