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.
All three had previously worked together on comedy projects involving musical parody, including the Lenny and the Squigtones LP and a television pilot, The TV Show, which marked the first appearance of Spinal Tap.
Introduced by Pamela Stephenson, the SNL sketch depicted the Folksmen as caricatures of semi-retired folk musicians: three conservatively dressed middle-aged men, spouting homilies and performing simplistic songs with cloying lyrics.
[1] In a 2009 interview, Shearer stated that the songs were intended to satirize "the fake folk music being written in office buildings in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
"[2] Guest, McKean and Shearer made a cameo appearance as the Folksmen in the 1992 film The Return of Spinal Tap, which documented the latter group's real-life reunion concert at Royal Albert Hall in London.
'"[3] The Folksmen were incorporated into Christopher Guest's mockumentary A Mighty Wind (2003), which depicted a reunion concert of three fictitious folk music acts, following the death of their mutual manager, Irving Steinbloom.
The film included interviews with the band members (which established much of their fictional backstory), reconstructed vintage footage and album covers, and various original songs performed in rehearsal as well as the purported concert, An Ode to Irving.
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).
[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.
[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.
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.
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.
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."
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.