Me and my cat, Muddy
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Me and my cat, Muddy |
The Whole Story
I grew up in the 1980s during the rise of MTV and soulless
synthesizer music and awful bands like Def Leppard and Journey. But back then,
there were still rock stations that played mostly sixties and seventies music
like The Doors, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. This made it easy for me
to reject the music of my own generation and turn to the glories of the past. My first
favorite bands were the Yardbirds, the Doors, and Cream; then the
Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers,
Rory Gallagher, Janis Joplin, The Byrds,
Crosby, Stills & Nash, Grateful Dead, and so many others.
But it wasn't until the nineties, during my first year at University of Rochester, that I started to explore folk music. I had a mysterious urge to hear "Leaving on a Jet Plane," so I went out and bought a used Peter, Paul & Mary LP. Spellbound by the tranquility of their music and the subtlety of their moods, I drifted more and more toward folk music. I started with the more well-known artists like Baez and Dylan, and I've been digging further and further folkward ever since.
How I discovered Richard & Mimi Fariña
I first read about Richard & Mimi in Jacques Vassal's book,
Electric Children: Roots and Branches of Modern Folkrock.
I heard them for the first time when I bought the Rhino sampler,
Troubadours of the Folk Era, Volume One, which included "Reno, Nevada."
I was instantly hooked after hearing that song and eagerly sought out more of their
music. Soon there was a party. But it wasn't until I read
David Hajdu's book, Positively 4th Street, that I was inspired to create
a website devoted to letting people know more about Richard and Mimi Fariña.
Since that time, a basic fan page has evolved into an on-going research project devoted to gathering and preserving information about Richard and Mimi, both as a duo and in their individual careers. Many thanks to all the people who have written to me to tell me about their memories of Richard and Mimi and the impact they had on their lives. I've chatted with Fariña fans from all over the world, including England, Ireland, Australia, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Finland, and Israel! (Hope I didn't forget anyone). If you'd like to join the online discussion group, send a blank e-mail to club47-subscribe@topica.com (to contact me individually, write to doug@richardandmimi.com).
Some other favorites...
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Favorite Groups: Ian & Sylvia Simon & Garfunkel Pentangle Peter, Paul & Mary The Byrds Crosby, Stills & Nash Grateful Dead Strawberry Alarm Clock
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Favorite Songwriters: Joni Mitchell Bob Dylan Victor Jara Paul Simon Gordon Lightfoot Hunter-Garcia Weir-Barlow David Crosby
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Favorite Female Vocalists: Judy Collins Joan Baez Sandy Denny Jaqui McShee Janis Joplin
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Favorite Male Vocalists: Tim Hardin Lennon & McCartney Neil Young Jesse Colin Young Tim Buckley Ian Tyson
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Favorite Guitarists: Davy Graham John Renbourn Bert Jansch Richard Dyer-Bennett Elizabeth Cotten Mississippi John Hurt Bruce Langhorne Leo Kottke
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Great Albums by Infrequently Recorded Artists:
Blues Run the Game - Jackson C. Frank, 1965 Woman Blue - Judy Roderick, 1965 Rainy Day Raga - Peter Walker, 1966 Morning Song - Jackie Washington, 1967 Penny's Arcade - Penny Nichols, 1968 Children of the Sun - Sallyangie, 1969 Parallelograms - Linda Perhacs, 1970 Just Another Diamond Day - Vashti Bunyan, 1970 Martine Habib - Martine Habib, 1973
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Some of my favorite novels: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald Howards End, by E.M. Forster To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner Journey to the East, by Herman Hesse The Lost Steps, by Alejo Carpentier Fortunate Pilgrim, by Mario Puzo Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov Atonement, by Ian McEwan
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Favorite movies: Edipo Re - Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1967 The Godfather 1 & 2 - Francis Ford Coppola, 1972-74 Aguirre: The Wrath of God - Werner Herzog, 1972 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Milos Foreman, 1975 The Emerald Forest - John Boorman, 1985 Veronico Cruz (La deuda interna) - Miguel Pereira, 1987 Dazed & Confused - Richard Linklater, 1993 The Ice Storm - Ang Lee, 1997 Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe, 2000
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Favorite Artists: Diego Rivera Frida Khalo Ismael Vargas Fernand Léger Jim Steranko Gil Kane Jack Kirby Steve Ditko Felipe Dávalos Luis Garay Maurice Pommier Gerald McDermott |
Some of my other Interests:
Languages Comic book art & illustrated books Environmentalism Cats Rabbits Mexico Cumbia Native Americans |
Other Projects:
Films on the Native Peoples of Central & South America
Reforma Northeast Chapter Website
My LibraryThing catalog of Folk Music Books
Online Annotated Edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book Three