Mimi Fariña

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Mimi Fariña

Mimi Baez Fariña (born April 30, 1945 as Margarita Mimi Baez , † July 18, 2001 ) was a singer, songwriter and activist. She was the daughter of the physicist Albert Baez and the sister of the folk singer Joan Baez .

Life

Fariña married the writer, musician and composer Richard Fariña in 1963 at the age of 17 . They worked together on a number of folk music albums, with Celebrations for a Gray Day (1965) and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (1966) standing out. After Richard Fariña's death in a motorcycle accident (on her 21st birthday in 1966), Mimi married Milan Melvin in 1968 . This connection is celebrated in Joan Baez's song Sweet Sir Galahad . Mimi Baez Fariña continued to make music. She was either in the studio or on stage with her sister Joan or the folk singer Tom Jans .

Bread and Roses

In 1974 Fariña founded Bread and Roses , a non-profit organization that aims to bring free music and entertainment to hospitals, old people's and nursing homes, but also prisons. Bread and Roses is still working and putting on around 500 shows a year. The name of the organization is based on the poem published in 1911 by the author James Oppenheim . Fariña brought the text of the poem into song form.

Although she continued to make music in her later career and released another album in 1985, Fariña devoted most of her time to the Bread and Roses project . She died in July 2001 at the age of 56 of a rare type of cancer ( Merkel cell tumor ).

literature

  • David Hajdu: Positively 4th Street - The Lives And Times Of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2001 ( review )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fariña, Mimi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baez Fariña, Mimi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, songwriter and activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1945
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 2001