I do recall that some people without a sense of humour were somewhat annoyed by the hilarious 1993 mockumentary A Mighty Wind. The film, co-written (with Eugene Levy), directed, and composed by Christopher Guest, parodies the American folk music revival of the late 1950s to early 1960s and its personalities. It is a gentle, sweet, and very funny take on the sometimes over-serious nature of some practitioners of folk music, but it means no harm and is in so many ways a delight.
I mention it only because I recently came across a song by the Glencoves called “Hootennany,” released in 1963. It takes very little imagination to connect various real acts to the ones created for A Mighty Wind, either more or less directly or in composite, but if the Glencoves were not on the minds of Levy and Guest, they might well have been. They are such a pure distillation of the time one can only smile.
For the record, the Glencoves were a folk group formed in 1961 in Mineola, New York, on Long Island. They got together while attending the same hight school and consisted of Don Connors (founder, lead vocals, banjo and guitar), Bill Byrne (vocals), and Brian Bolger (vocals and guitar). After releasing their first single record, the group was joined by John Cadley (vocals and guitar).
The song featured here, “Hootenanny,” was their one hit. It peaked at #5 or #6 (Billboard and Cashbox) in the local New York market, and reached a #38 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963.
Whatever one may think of it, I would suggest that this recording gave them one more hit than had by the vast majority of those who strap on a guitar or banjo in search of fame and fortune a the time.