hypersongs

Mimi & Richard Farina

An American folk duo on Vanguard in 1964-66, Richard on Appalachian dulcimer and Mimi on guitar, who made Celebrations for a Grey Day (1965) and are remembered for "Pack Up Your Sorrows" and "Birmingham Sunday".

The duo

Richard George Farina was born on March 8, 1937 in Brooklyn, grew up in Flatbush and went to Brooklyn Technical High School; his mother was Irish and his father Cuban. He left Cornell shortly before graduating, in 1959, where his friends included Thomas Pynchon and Peter Yarrow. In 1963 he released the EP Four for Fun and made Dick Farina and Eric Von Schmidt, with Bob Dylan as a guest on six tracks. Mimi Farina was born Margarita Mimi Baez on April 30, 1945 in Palo Alto, California, and was the youngest of three daughters of the physicist Albert Baez.

They settled in a cabin in Carmel Valley and wrote songs on guitar and dulcimer; Far Out reports that Richard wrote most of the words and Mimi shaped most of the melodies. They made their duo debut at the Big Sur Folk Festival in June 1964 with a three-song set, which led to a Vanguard contract, and played regularly at Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their sound is closer to folk than to the Byrds, though Britannica calls their records an early example of folk rock. Bruce Langhorne, who had played for Dylan, helped on the debut.

Records and Newport

Celebrations for a Grey Day came out in April 1965, and Reflections in a Crystal Wind in December 1965 according to MusicBrainz, or 1966 according to Britannica. At the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, hours before Dylan's electric set, rain began and they kept playing under an umbrella as the audience danced in the mud. Mimi recalled that everybody was getting soaked, and people were laughing and dancing to the music. In September 1965 they were at the Sing-In for Peace in Viet Nam at Carnegie Hall, and they were the sole guests on Pete Seeger's television series Rainbow Quest, in early 1966 by Wikipedia's account but earlier in 1965 by another.

Richard published his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me on April 28, 1966, and died two days later, on April 30, 1966, aged 29. Thomas Pynchon, who had been best man at their wedding, wrote the novel's introduction and dedicated Gravity's Rainbow to him. Memories (Vanguard, 1968) collected unreleased duo songs, two Mimi solo tracks and duets with Joan Baez. Mimi founded Bread and Roses in 1974, a charity that played free concerts in institutions, more than 600 concerts in over 120 by 2019, and released Mimi Farina Solo (Rounder, 1985). She died on July 18, 2001, aged 56. David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street (2001) argues that Richard was an equal talent to Dylan; Salon called the 1999 compilation some of the strongest music of the 1960s.

Albums

  • Celebrations for a Grey Day 1965 · Vanguard

    Their debut: dulcimer and guitar songs including "Pack Up Your Sorrows", "Reno Nevada" and "The Falcon".

Songs

  • Pack Up Your Sorrows Celebrations for a Grey Day · 1965

    The song most identified with the duo, track two of Celebrations for a Grey Day, covered by Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash and Peter, Paul and Mary.

Sources

  1. Richard Farina, Wikipedia
  2. Mimi Farina, Wikipedia
  3. Farina, Richard George, Encyclopedia.com
  4. Mimi Farina, the reluctant folk icon, Far Out