Richard Farina: Lost Genius Who Bridged the Gap Between Beats and Hippies

[red dog 1]

Last edited Sun Jan 29, 2017, 05:26 PM - Edit history (1)

The Guardian (US)
March 25, 2016


On 30 April, 1966, at around lunchtime, Richard Farina sat down at a table at the Thunderbird bookstore and cafe in Carmel, California, to sign copies of his freshly minted first novel,
"Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me," published just two days before.

The sky was blue and California cloudless, and Farina, 29, had organized a surprise 21st birthday party for his wife, Mimi Farina, the sister of Joan Baez.
Farina signed copy after copy of his novel, the dedication page of which read:
"This one is for Mimi."

A little after seven that evening, Richard Farina was dead, a motorcycle accident on the winding Carmel Valley Road had claimed the life of an artist bursting with potential, at the very beginning of his career.

Richard Farina was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937 to an Irish mother and a Cuban father.
He studied at Cornell University - sharing a room with Thomas Pynchon - and after leaving Cornell in 1959, he became a fixture of the nascent folk scene in Greenwich Village, befriending Bob Dylan and through him meeting Joan Baez and her sister Mimi, who Farina married in 1963 when she was just 17.

Farina and Mimi moved into a cabin in Carmel and made beautiful music together - quite literally, writing songs on guitar and dulcimer and releasing two albums in 1965,
"Celebrations for a Grey Day" and "Reflections in a Crystal Wind."

If you know any of their songs, it's likely to be "Pack Up Your Sorrows," recorded since by the likes of Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and Loudon Wainwright lll.

When I first read "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me," on the recommendation of a friend back in the dog-end days of the '80s, I'd never heard of Farina and was unaware of his folk scene fame.
All I had to go on was my Penguin paperback (joyfully battered in front of me, right now), with a mischievous-looking curly-haired Farina smiling toothily from the cover, and a brief biography at the front of the book that raised as many questions as it answered.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/25/richard-farina-lost-genius-bridged-gap-beats-hippies

[braddy]

1. I still have a copy of that book, I read it while in the army.

[ghostsinthemachine]

2. Very important guy,

I've read just about every music biography ever, books on the sixties, the beats, you name it, and Richard Farina's name crops up continuously. Especially in regards to Dylan.(I've read everything ever printed about Dylan, BIOS, his sort of autobiography, magazine articles, interviews, etc)

But the name that pops up more often than any, is Allen Ginsburg. Both Richard and Allen's lives intersect as well. Ginsburg. America's first openly gay person.. inspired and got published Kerouak, Cassidy, HST, Burrows etc. First person who openly supported marijuana use. First person to openly support LSD use. Inspired Dylan. Organized the Human Be In in SF (the 50th anniversary was a couple of weeks ago). Was the spokesperson for the sixties... And the fifties.

I think I will grab that book... Never read it and I need a new book. I've seen Mimi a couple of times at Bread and Roses, but that was long ago). Joan ivecseen a plenty, she too is at the center of that universe. The Village, then the Bay Area when both scenes were the center of cultural change.

[red dog 1]

3. I think you will like the book

I rank it up there with "Catcher in the Rye" as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
(It might be the best novel I ever read)

Also, you might want to check out the You Tube videos of Richard & Mimi Farina.
(There's one version of "Pack Up Your Sorrow" with Richard, Mimi, & Pete Seeger).