RICHARD FARIÑA
RICHARD FARIÑA
(March 8, 1937 – April 30, 1966)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kwrBiPX_IY
RICHARD FARIÑA (March 8, 1937 – April 30, 1966) was an American folksinger, song writer, poet and novelist. 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. He earned an academic scholarship to Cornell University, starting as an engineering major, but later switching to English. While at Cornell he published short stories for local literary magazines and for national periodicals, including Transatlantic Review and Mademoiselle. Fariña became good friends with Thomas Pynchon,David Shetzline, and Peter Yarrow while at Cornell. He was suspended for alleged participation in a student demonstration against campus regulations and although he later resumed his status as a student, he ultimately dropped out in 1959, just before graduation. Ascent on Greenwich Village folk scene.
Back in Manhattan, Fariña became a regular patron of the White Horse Tavern, the well-known Greenwich Village tavern frequented by poets, artists, and folksingers, where he befriended Tommy Makem. It was there that he met Carolyn Hester, a successful folk singer. They married eighteen days later. Fariña appointed himself Hester’s agent; they toured worldwide while Fariña worked on his novel and Carolyn performed gigs. Fariña was present when Hester recorded her third album at Columbia studios during September 1961, where a then-little-known Bob Dylan played harmonica on several tracks. Fariña became a good friend of Dylan’s; their friendship is a major topic of David Hajdu’s book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña.
Fariña then traveled to Europe, where he met Mimi Baez, the teenage sister of Joan Baez, in the spring of 1962. Hester divorced Fariña soon thereafter, and Fariña married 17-year-old Mimi in April 1963. Thomas Pynchon was the best man. They moved to a small cabin in Carmel, California, where they composed songs with a guitar and Appalachian dulcimer. They debuted their act as “Richard & Mimi Fariña” at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1964 and signed a contract with Vanguard Records. They recorded their first album, Celebrations for a Grey Day, in 1965, with the help of Bruce Langhorne, who had previously played for Dylan. During the brief life of Richard Fariña, the couple released only one other album, Reflections in a Crystal Wind, also in 1965. A third album, Memories, was issued in 1968, after his death.
Fariña, like Dylan and others of this time, was considered a protest singer, and several of his songs are overtly political. Several critics have considered Fariña to be a major folk music talent of the 1960s. (“If Richard had survived that motorcycle accident, he would have easily given Dylan a run for his money.” – Ed Ward).
His best-known songs are, “Pack Up Your Sorrows” and “Birmingham Sunday”, the latter of which was recorded by Joan Baez and became better known after it became the theme song for Spike Lee’s film, 4 Little Girls, a documentary about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. At the time of his death, Fariña also was producing an album for his sister-in-law, Joan Baez. She ultimately decided not to release the album, however, though two of the songs were included on Fariña’s posthumous album, and another, a cover version of Fariña’s “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, co-written by Fariña with the third Baez sister, Pauline Marden, was released as a single in 1966; it has since been included in a number of Baez’ compilation albums.
On April 27, 1968, Fairport Convention recorded a live version of “Reno Nevada” for French TV programme Bouton Rouge, featuring vocals by Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews. They then recorded the song for a BBC session later in the same year, this time with Dyble’s replacement in the band Sandy Denny, subsequently included on the album Heyday. Denny also recorded “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” for her album Sandy. Matthews later recorded “Reno Nevada” and “Morgan the Pirate” for his album, “If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes”; other Farina compositions appeared on subsequent solo albums and on recordings by Matthews’ band, Plainsong. [Read more on Wikipedia]