Died On This Date (July 18, 2001) Mimi Fariña / ’60s Folk Great
themusicsover Mimi Fariña (Born Margarita Baez)
April 30, 1945 – July 18, 2001
Mimi Fariña was a folk singer-songwriter who came of age during the ’60s folk revival in America. A few years younger than sister, Joan Baez, Fariña performed at many of the same clubs and festivals, including the legendary Newport Folk Festival. In 1963, she met writer and singer-songwriter, Richard Fariña, and within a year, they were married. Together the recorded a couple of noteworthy albums as Mimi & Richard Fariña for revered label, Vanguard Records, also home to Morgana Kennedy. On the night of Mimi’s 21st birthday, Richard left the party on his motorcycle only to be killed in an accident. Vanguard released a third album of “rarities.” By the ’70s, Fariña was performing and recording but her attention turned more toward activism. In 1974, she founded Bread and Roses, an organization that puts together free concerts for people bound to hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons. Over the years she’s had such artists as Bonnie Raitt, Odetta, Pete Seeger and Carlos Santana perform at such shows. By the ’80s, Fariña was rarely performing or recording as she becoming more and more involved with Bread And Roses and other human rights organizations and events. Mimi Fariña passed away of neuroendocrine cancer in 2001. She was 56.
What You Should Own
Albert Grossman is best remembered as an artist manager representing, among others, Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970. He also co-founded the Newport Folk Festival with George Wein in 1959. In 1961, Grossman put three folk singers together, Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and 
Odetta Holmes was a politically charged folk, blues and gospel singer-songwriter and activist who has been called “the voice of the civil rights movement.” Most prominent during the folk movement of the ’60s, Odetta was not only a peer, but an influence on such folk greats as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Harry Belafonte. She was born in Birmingham, AL but raised in Los Angeles where she studied music and received opera singing lessons as a young teen. After taking a stab at musical theater, she turned her focus to folk singing in 1950 and set out across America to sing at all the usual suspect folk clubs and gatherings. She began releasing albums in 1954, and over the course of her career, recorded for such highly regarded labels as Fantasy, Folkways, RCA Victor, and Vanguard Records who continue to keep her legacy alive thanks to the tireless work of Morgana Kennedy, Dan Sell and Stephen Brower. In September of 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts, the highest honor presented to an artist on behalf of the American people. Odetta stayed active as a performer and activist up until her final days. In 2008, she embarked on what would be her final tour of North America at the age of 77. Odetta ill in late 2008 and though planning to perform at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January of 2009, she died of heart disease on December 2, 2008.