A Mighty Wind: The Album

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Free Music Notes for A Mighty Wind: The Album

Free Music Review: There's a kiss at the end of the rainbow...
Hit: 5 Stars

I think it is a mistake to try and equate all of the characters created by Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, and their company of players as representing real counterparts. True, it is impossible to look at the New Main Street Singers and not think of the New Christy Minstrels, but there were lots of groups of giddy young people singing folk songs and such at that time. Besides, it is impossible not to think of Mitch & Mickey as a real group. Who did not get a lump in their throat watching the film when the reunited duo sang "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and recreated their famous onstage kiss? You can look for some hidden humor in their songs, but you are not going to find anything amusing beyond their simple earnestness. I just have to say that it if they had not cut "When You're Next to Me" from the film then Mitch & Mickey would would have had two incredibly catchy songs in a single movie, and you know what that did for Evanescene. Throw in "One More Time" and the "Ballad of Bobby & June" (okay, that one has some funny bits) and you will be pestering your local music store for old Mitch & Mickey albums. Who would have thought that Eugene Levy and Catharine O'Hara could make such beautiful music together.

If Mitch & Mickey provide the heart and soul of this soundtrack album then it is the Folksmen who provide the biting wit, although the only really tongue in cheek effort that made it into the film was the title track, "A Mighty Wind." "Old Joe's Place" is silly tongue twisting fun, but "Blood on the Coal" and "Skeletons of Quinto" take some serious swipes at the pretentiousness of protest music. But then they do a harmonic cover of "Start Me Up" and you have to just shake your head and chuckle. Having the two versions of "Never Did No Wanderin'" (without the "g", for the Folksmen but with it for the New Main Street Singers of course) is a nice little case study of how populaist folk songs were turned into popular pap for by the process of crass commercialism.

But once you see the film and rush out to get this album so you can play it over and over again, it is going to be Mitch & Mickey that join the pantheon of great faux music groups, along with Eddie & the Crusiers, Ellen Aim, the Commitments, and, of course, Spinal Tap. Just remember: "When the veil of dreams is lifted, and the fairy tales have all been told, there's a kiss a the end of the rainbow...more precious than a pot of gold."

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