Mimi Fariña

Mimi Farina, Joan Baez's younger sister, first got into performing professionally in partnership with her husband, novelist and songwriter Richard Farina, whom she married in 1963. Singing harmony, the couple released two remarkable albums on Vanguard, Celebrations for a Grey Day in 1965 and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (1966), before Richard was killed in a motorcycle accident. Mimi Farina was 21. She subsequently released an album of the duo's outtakes, Memories. (The two albums made during Richard's lifetime were reissued as a best-of two-fer.) In the late '60s, Farina, based in California, worked with a satiric improvisational acting group and began to write her own songs. She re-emerged on record in 1971 on Take Heart, a duo album with Tom Jans that included her tribute song to Janis Joplin, "In the Quiet Morning." (This and other songs of hers were also recorded by her sister.) In the '70s, Farina founded Bread & Roses, a charity organization devoted to pu ...more