Mimi Fariña
Mimi Fariña | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Margarita Mimi Baez |
Born | Palo Alto, California, U.S. | April 30, 1945
Died | July 18, 2001 Mill Valley, California, U.S. | (aged 56)
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Instrument(s) |
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Years active | 1963–2001 |
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Margarita Mimi Baez Fariña (April 30, 1945 – July 18, 2001)
Career
Early years
Fariña's father, a physicist affiliated with
Fariña met novelist, musician, and composer
Among the songs she wrote is "In the Quiet Morning (for Janis Joplin)", which her sister recorded and released in 1972 on the album Come from the Shadows. The song is also included on a number of compilations, including Joan Baez's Greatest Hits.
By 1973, Fariña was asked to accompany her sister Joan and
Bread and Roses
In 1974, Fariña founded Bread and Roses, now known as Bread and Roses Presents. The organization's name came from "
Bread and Roses is in its fifth decade as a non-profit organization, bringing free live music and entertainment to children, adults, and seniors who are isolated in institutional settings: children's day care and special needs schools, hospitals, adult and juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, adult recovery centers, senior day and convalescent homes. Bread and Roses serves isolated audiences in eight counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, and consults with other like-minded programs nationally. In 2019, Bread and Roses brought performers to play more than 600 concerts in over 120 institutions.
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 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 U.S.-backed civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. They once set up to play on the abandoned railroad tracks outside the Concord Naval Weapons Center in California. Surrounded by military police, Fariña and Sears played a show for people protesting U.S. weapons being shipped to government troops in El Salvador.
In 1985, she recorded her own album Mimi Fariña Solo. Bread and Roses also has a CD—produced by Banana, aka Lowell Levinger, with Michael Kleff—of a series of concerts that she gave with Banana in Germany in the 1980s.
Fariña used her connections with the folk-singing community to elicit help in supporting Bread and Roses, including Pete Seeger, Paul Winter, Odetta, Hoyt Axton, Judy Collins, Taj Mahal, Lily Tomlin, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, and others.[1]
Death and legacy
Fariña died of
The life of Mimi Fariña is partially chronicled in
She is referred to by Carol Ward (Catherine O'Hara) in the U.S. television series Six Feet Under, in which it is stated that Fariña had been involved with the production of the (fictitious) Pack Up Your Sorrows: The Mimi Fariña Story. She also was the subject of sister Joan Baez' 1969 song "Sweet Sir Galahad".
She appears in the 2012 documentary Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation
Selected discography
- 1965: Celebrations for a Grey Day with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 1966: Reflections in a Crystal Wind with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 1968: Memories with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 1971: Take Heart with Tom Jans, A&M Records
- 1985: Mimi Farina Solo, Rounder Records
- 2001: The Complete Vanguard Recordings with Richard Fariña, Vanguard Records
- 2018: Mimi Fariña with Lowell Levinger (Banana from The Youngbloods) Grandpa Raccoon Records
References
- ^ a b c d Ashley, Beth (2001). "Bread and Roses Founder Singer-Activist Mimi Farina Dead at 56". Commondreams.org. Marin Independent Journal. Retrieved June 7, 2009.
- ^ ISBN 0-85112-939-0.
- ^ "Mimi Farina Biography". Richardandmimi.com. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
- ^ "Eulogies". Bread and Roses. Bread and Roses. Archived from the original on September 29, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
- ^ Cooksey, G (2004). The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (Volume 6: 2000-2002 ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 152–153.
- OCLC 842426241.
External links
- Allusions to Richard or Mimi Fariña
- Still Shots Performance on Rainbow Quest
- News Film footage of Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña (in the background) being released from jail October 26, 1967.
- 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