Mimi Fariña
Encyclopedia
Mimi Baez Fariña was a singer-songwriter
and activist, the youngest of three daughters to a Scottish
mother and Mexican-American physicist
Albert Baez
(her next-older sister is singer and activist Joan Baez
).
and MIT, moved his family frequently, due to his job assignments, working in places not just in the U.S. but internationally. She benefited from dance and music lessons, and took up the guitar
, joining the sixties American folk music revival
.
Fariña met novel
ist, musician
and composer
Richard Fariña
in 1963 at the age of 17 and married him at 18. The two collaborated on a number of influential folk albums, most notably Celebrations for a Grey Day (1965) and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (1966), both on Vanguard Records
. After Richard Fariña's death (on Mimi's 21st birthday) in a 1966 motorcycle accident, Mimi married Milan Melvin
and continued to perform, sometimes recording and touring with either her sister Joan, or folksinger Tom Jans
, with whom she recorded an album in 1971, entitled, Take Heart. Among the songs she wrote is In the Quiet Morning (For Janis Joplin), which her sister recorded. The song is included on Joan Baez's Greatest Hits album.
In 1967, Fariña joined a satiric comedy troupe called The Committee. That same year, she and her sister Joan Baez were arrested at a peaceful demonstration where the two were temporarily housed in Santa Rita Jail
, personalizing the experience of captivity for her. By 1973, she was asked to accompany her sister Joan, and B.B. King and perform for the prisoners in Sing Sing Prison. Those two experiences led her to a desire to do more for those who are held in institutions.
, a non-profit co-operative organization, designed to bring free music and entertainment to institutions: jails, hospitals, juvenile facilities, nursing homes, and prisons, initially in the San Francisco Bay
area, and later nationally. It still remains in operation, producing 500 shows per year. The organization's name came from a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim
, Bread and Roses
, which is commonly associated with a 1912 garment workers' strike
in Lawrence, Massachusetts
.
Though she continued to sing in her later years, releasing an album in 1985 and performing sporadically, Fariña devoted most of her time to running Bread and Roses. In the late 1980s, she teamed up with Pete Sears
to play a variety of benefit and protest concerts. Many concerts were concerned with human rights issues
in Central America, especially the US backed civil wars in Guatemala
and El Salvador
. They once set up to play on the abandoned railroad tracks outside Concord Naval Base in California. Surrounded by military police, Farina and Sears played a show for people protesting US weapons being shipped to government troops in El Salvador
.
In 1986, she took the time to record her own album, Mimi Farina Solo.
Fariña used her connections with the folksinging community to elicit help in her focus with Bread and Roses, including Pete Seeger
, Paul Winter
, Odetta
, Judy Collins
, Taj Mahal
, Lily Tomlin
, Carlos Santana
, and Bonnie Raitt
, amongst others. In 2000 alone, Bread and Roses brought performers to play in over 500 concerts in 82 institutions.
The life of Mimi Fariña is partially chronicled in David Hajdu's book, Positively 4th Street. She also has a cameo appearance
in Armistead Maupin
's Tales of the City
, set in San Francisco in the '70s.
She is referenced by Carol Ward (Catherine O'Hara
) in the US television series Six Feet Under, stating she had been involved with the production of the (fictitious) Pack Up Your Sorrows: The Mimi Fariña Story. She was also the subject of her sister Joan Baez's 1969 song "Sweet Sir Galahad
."
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and activist, the youngest of three daughters to a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
mother and Mexican-American physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Albert Baez
Albert Baez
Albert Vinicio Baez, Ph.D. was a prominent Mexican-American physicist, and the father of singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña. He was born in Puebla, Mexico, and his family moved to the United States when he was two years old because his father was a Methodist minister...
(her next-older sister is singer and activist Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
).
Early years
Fariña's father, a physicist affiliated with Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and MIT, moved his family frequently, due to his job assignments, working in places not just in the U.S. but internationally. She benefited from dance and music lessons, and took up the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, joining the sixties American folk music revival
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
.
Fariña met novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Richard Fariña
Richard Fariña
Richard George Fariña was an American writer and folksinger.-Early years and education:Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Cuban and Irish descent. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Technical High School...
in 1963 at the age of 17 and married him at 18. The two collaborated on a number of influential folk albums, most notably Celebrations for a Grey Day (1965) and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (1966), both on Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
. After Richard Fariña's death (on Mimi's 21st birthday) in a 1966 motorcycle accident, Mimi married Milan Melvin
Sweet Sir Galahad
"Sweet Sir Galahad" is a song written by Joan Baez that she performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969. She first performed it on Season 3, Episode 23, of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour earlier that year and included it on her album One Day at a Time...
and continued to perform, sometimes recording and touring with either her sister Joan, or folksinger Tom Jans
Tom Jans
Tom Jans was a folk musician from San Jose, California. He is perhaps best known for his song "Lovin' Arms" , which has been performed and recorded by dozens of artists and bands, including Elvis Presley, Dixie Chicks, Natalie Cole, Kris Kristofferson, Olivia Newton-John, Rita Coolidge, Livingston...
, with whom she recorded an album in 1971, entitled, Take Heart. Among the songs she wrote is In the Quiet Morning (For Janis Joplin), which her sister recorded. The song is included on Joan Baez's Greatest Hits album.
In 1967, Fariña joined a satiric comedy troupe called The Committee. That same year, she and her sister Joan Baez were arrested at a peaceful demonstration where the two were temporarily housed in Santa Rita Jail
Santa Rita Jail
Santa Rita Jail is a county jail located in Dublin, Alameda County, California adjacent to the Camp Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, and operated by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office...
, personalizing the experience of captivity for her. By 1973, she was asked to accompany her sister Joan, and B.B. King and perform for the prisoners in Sing Sing Prison. Those two experiences led her to a desire to do more for those who are held in institutions.
Bread and Roses
In 1974, Fariña founded Bread and RosesBread and Roses
The slogan "Bread and Roses" originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in The American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to "the women in the West." It is commonly associated with a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January-March 1912, now often...
, a non-profit co-operative organization, designed to bring free music and entertainment to institutions: jails, hospitals, juvenile facilities, nursing homes, and prisons, initially in the San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
area, and later nationally. It still remains in operation, producing 500 shows per year. The organization's name came from a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim
James Oppenheim
James Oppenheim , was an American poet, novelist, and editor. A lay analyst and early follower of C. G. Jung, Oppenheim was also the founder and editor of The Seven Arts, an important early 20th-century literary magazine....
, Bread and Roses
Bread and Roses
The slogan "Bread and Roses" originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in The American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to "the women in the West." It is commonly associated with a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January-March 1912, now often...
, which is commonly associated with a 1912 garment workers' strike
Lawrence textile strike
The Lawrence Textile Strike was a strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 led by the Industrial Workers of the World. Prompted by one mill owner's decision to lower wages when a new law shortening the workweek went into effect in January, the strike spread rapidly through the...
in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
.
Though she continued to sing in her later years, releasing an album in 1985 and performing sporadically, Fariña devoted most of her time to running Bread and Roses. In the late 1980s, she teamed up with Pete Sears
Pete Sears
Peter 'Pete' Sears is an English rock musician. In a career spanning more than four decades he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock of the 1960s, folk, country music, arena rock in the 1970s, and blues...
to play a variety of benefit and protest concerts. Many concerts were concerned with human rights issues
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in Central America, especially the US backed civil wars in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
. They once set up to play on the abandoned railroad tracks outside Concord Naval Base in California. Surrounded by military police, Farina and Sears played a show for people protesting US weapons being shipped to government troops in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
.
In 1986, she took the time to record her own album, Mimi Farina Solo.
Fariña used her connections with the folksinging community to elicit help in her focus with Bread and Roses, including Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Paul Winter
Paul Winter
Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...
, Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
, Lily Tomlin
Lily Tomlin
Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedienne, writer, and producer. Tomlin has been a major force in American comedy since the late 1960's when she began a career as a stand up comedian and became a featured performer on television's Laugh-in...
, Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
, and Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, amongst others. In 2000 alone, Bread and Roses brought performers to play in over 500 concerts in 82 institutions.
Death and legacy
Fariña died of neuroendocrine cancer, at her home in California, on July 18, 2001, at age 56.The life of Mimi Fariña is partially chronicled in David Hajdu's book, Positively 4th Street. She also has a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in Armistead Maupin
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, based in San Francisco.-Early life:...
's Tales of the City
Tales of the City (novel)
Tales of the City is the first book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in The San Francisco Chronicle.- Plot :...
, set in San Francisco in the '70s.
She is referenced by Carol Ward (Catherine O'Hara
Catherine O'Hara
Catherine Anne O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress and comedienne. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, and her roles in the films After Hours, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and also in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest...
) in the US television series Six Feet Under, stating she had been involved with the production of the (fictitious) Pack Up Your Sorrows: The Mimi Fariña Story. She was also the subject of her sister Joan Baez's 1969 song "Sweet Sir Galahad
Sweet Sir Galahad
"Sweet Sir Galahad" is a song written by Joan Baez that she performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969. She first performed it on Season 3, Episode 23, of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour earlier that year and included it on her album One Day at a Time...
."
Selected discography
- 1965: Celebrations for a Grey Day with Richard FariñaRichard FariñaRichard George Fariña was an American writer and folksinger.-Early years and education:Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Cuban and Irish descent. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Technical High School...
, Vanguard RecordsVanguard RecordsVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary... - 1966: Reflections in a Crystal Wind with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 1968: "Memories" with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 1971: Take Heart with Tom JansTom JansTom Jans was a folk musician from San Jose, California. He is perhaps best known for his song "Lovin' Arms" , which has been performed and recorded by dozens of artists and bands, including Elvis Presley, Dixie Chicks, Natalie Cole, Kris Kristofferson, Olivia Newton-John, Rita Coolidge, Livingston...
A&M RecordsA&M RecordsA&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:... - 1985: Mimi Farina Solo Rounder Records
External links
- Allusions to Richard or Mimi Fariña
- Still Shots Performance on Rainbow Quest
- Tribute from Bread & Roses site
- Obituary in Marin Independent Journal
- Bread & Roses, non-profit organization founded by Mimi to bring live entertainment to those who are in institutions
- Mimi Farina at Find-A-Grave
- Mimi Fariña and Joan Baez