Mimi Fariña

Margarita Mimi Baez Fariña (April 30, 1945 – July 18, 2001)

Career Early years Fariña's father, a physicist affiliated with Stanford University and MIT, moved his family frequently due to his job assignments, working in the United States and in international locations. She benefited from dance and music lessons, and took up the guitar, joining the 1960s American folk music revival.

Fariña met novelist, musician, and composer Richard Fariña (1937–1966) in 1963, when she was 17 years old, and married him at age 18 in Paris. 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), both on Vanguard Records.

Death and legacy Fariña died of neuroendocrine cancer at her home in Mill Valley, California, on July 18, 2001, at age 56.

The life of Mimi Fariña is partially chronicled in David Hajdu's book Positively 4th Street. She is alluded to in the Armistead Maupin novel Tales of the City, set in San Francisco in the 1970s, and she appeared in a cameo role in the 1993 miniseries based on the novel.

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 and the 2023 documentary Joan Baez: I Am a Noise.

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