Everything about Mimi Fari A totally explained
Mimi Baez Fariña (born
Margarita Mimi Baez,
April 30,
1945 –
July 18,
2001) was a singer, songwriter, and activist. She was the daughter of
physicist Albert Baez and sister of
folk singer Joan Baez.
Fariña married novelist, musician and composer
Richard Fariña in
1963 at the age of 17, and 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). 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.
In
1974, Fariña founded
Bread and Roses, a non-profit organization, designed to bring free music and entertainment to hospitals, 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 eighties, 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.
She died of a rare form of cancer of the
endocrine system in
July 2001 at age 56.
The life of Mimi Fariña is somewhat chronicled in David Hajdu's book, "Positively Fourth Street". She also has a cameo appearance in
Armistead Maupin's
Tales of the city, set in San Francisco in the 70's.
She is referenced by
Catherine O'Hara's character of Carol Ward in on episode #52 (the first episode of Season 5) of the US television series
Six Feet Under, stating she'd been involved with the production of the (ficticious)
"Pack Up Your Sorrows: The Mimi Fariña Story."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mimi Fari A'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://mimi_fari__a.totallyexplained.com">Mimi Fariña Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
