A Mighty Wind: The Album

1	Old Joe's Place / Folksmen 2:10
2	Just That Kinda Day / New Main Street Singers 2:32
3	When You're Next to Me / Mitch & Mickey 2:59
4	Never Did No Wanderin' / Folksmen 3:04
5	Fare Away / New Main Street Singers 2:40
6	One More Time / Mitch & Mickey 3:38
7	Loco Man / Folksmen 1:57
8	The Good Book Song / New Main Street Singers 2:13
9	Skeletons of Quinto / Folksmen 3:28
10	Never Did No Wanderin' / New Main Street Singers 2:46
11	The Ballad of Bobby and Jane / Mitch & Mickey 4:08
12	Blood on the Coal / Folksmen 3:07
13	Main Street Rag / New Main Street Singers 0:58
14	Start Me Up / Folksmen 2:26
15	Potato's in the Paddy Wagon / New Main Street Singers 2:11
16	A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow / Mitch & Mickey 2:32
17	A Mighty Wind / Mitch & Mickey 2:17

Barnes & Noble

Leave it to Christopher Guest, director of the now-classic parodies Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, to bring us A Mighty Wind, a dead-on take on the '60 folk scene. The soundtrack features gems from the three musical “artists”: “The Folksmen,” “Mitch & Mickey,” and “The New Main Street Singers.” Guest’s ace in the hole is to let the often hilarious songs speak for themselves, thus hanging their makers in the process. The jokes are embedded in the pieties, forced enthusiasm, faux authenticity, and self-righteousness of the lyrics and the performers' deadly serious delivery. As a key player in the success of This Is Spinal Tap, Guest also makes sure to get all the musical details right, thus ensuring that the subtext will be all the more ironic. It’s all great fun, for those who lived through the era and those who are glad they didn’t. William Pearl

All Music Guide

Fans of This Is Spinal Tap certainly were satisfied by Christopher Guest's Waiting For Guffman and Best In Show, since they often achieved a similar level of deliriously inspired improvised genius. Even so, one thing key ingredient was missing: the music, which is as brilliant as the spontaneous jokes and set pieces in the movie itself. For his third mockumentary (a term Guest hates, but has become shorthand for his unique comedy), Guest returned to music, creating a tribute to the folk scene of the early '60s with A Mighty Wind, where three of the biggest folk acts of the era reunite for a tribute concert to a recently deceased folk producer. Since this is a fictional comedy, not a documentary, it does take some liberties with the truth, particularly because it deliberately chooses not to address political or protest folk. Some may gripe about this, but it hardly hurts the film and its accompanying soundtrack because the movie is bathed in the warm, fond glow of nostalgia and prefers to focus on the spirit of the times, not the details. So, there is no no equivalent of Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs in A Mighty Wind, but the three main acts have clear counterparts: the trio of the Folksmen (featuring Spinal Tap's Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer) are the Kingston Trio; Mitch & Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara) are the film's romantically entwined duo, akin to Ian & Sylvia or Richard & Mimi Farina; finally, the New Main Street Singers (featuring John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch and Parker Posey, among others) are the equivalent of the Limeliters and the New Christy Minstrels. What's remarkable about the music is that it's all written by the cast and it perfectly captures the sound and feel of the folk crossover acts of the time. Each group has a different sound befitting their counterpart, and within that, the songs are bright and varied, tuneful and memorable. Apart from the Folksmen's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up," which is not heard in the film, and perhaps the heavy-handed (but very funny) "The Good Book Song" by the New Main Street Singers, there are no obvious jokes, which is what makes the music work as music. And while some of the songs may function almost too well as neo-period pieces - witness the somberness of the Folksmen's Spanish/American war "Skeletons of Quinto" - most of these are infectiously enjoyable as individual songs. They're as good as the songs in Spinal Tap and, in some ways, more impressive, since they're more intricate and cover more styles. The greatest testament to its success is that it works as a folk-pop album regardless of the film. It is funnier if you're in the joke, but that's not necessary to know if you just want to enjoy the music here on this splendid album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Billboard

Illustrates just how seriously this troupe takes its humor.