Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years
Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
One who listens to the music of Richard and Mimi Farina also hears legend and tragedy chiming out like the Autoharp and dulcimer dominating their sound. By the time of the motorcycle accident which took his life at age 30, Richard Farina had run guns for the IRA, participated in the Cuban Revolution, bummed about Greenwich Village coffeehouses, recorded with Bob Dylan, appeared at Newport Folk Festivals, befriended Thomas Pynchon, and, under the influence of Pynchon and Jack Kerouac, wrote a frenetic novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Up To Me. His marriage to Mimi Baez (Joan's sister) brought the singer's spectral soprano and pealing autoharp to his original songs of bohemian wit and wonder--compositions such as "Pack Up Your Sorrows," "Reno Nevada," and "Another Country," all underappreciated classics of 1960s wanderlust. This set concisely distills Richard and Mimi's most consistent work for Vanguard, part neo-Appalachian folk stylization, part venturous, Byrds-like folk-rock. --Roy Kasten
Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years,Mimi & Richard Farina,Vanguard Records,Folk,Folk & Traditional,Folk Revival,Folk-Rock,Pop,Singer/Songwriter
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Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years
Mimi & Richard Farina Manufacturer: Vanguard Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD  General
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ASIN: B00001NTJ0 Release Date: 1999-09-28 |
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Amazon.com
One who listens to the music of Richard and Mimi Farina also hears legend and tragedy chiming out like the Autoharp and dulcimer dominating their sound. By the time of the motorcycle accident which took his life at age 30, Richard Farina had run guns for the IRA, participated in the Cuban Revolution, bummed about Greenwich Village coffeehouses, recorded with Bob Dylan, appeared at Newport Folk Festivals, befriended Thomas Pynchon, and, under the influence of Pynchon and Jack Kerouac, wrote a frenetic novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Up To Me. His marriage to Mimi Baez (Joan's sister) brought the singer's spectral soprano and pealing autoharp to his original songs of bohemian wit and wonder--compositions such as "Pack Up Your Sorrows," "Reno Nevada," and "Another Country," all underappreciated classics of 1960s wanderlust. This set concisely distills Richard and Mimi's most consistent work for Vanguard, part neo-Appalachian folk stylization, part venturous, Byrds-like folk-rock. --Roy KastenCustomer Reviews:
Less than giants, more than footnotes.......2003-12-18
Rumors persist that, like his friend Bob Dylan, Richard Farina decided to write and sing folk songs not for the love of the music but for the places it could take him. Even if so, he was at least a good student of the craft; his performances on the dulcimer (which he reportedly chose because he thought it would be easier to learn than the guitar) lend many of the songs found here a more authentic feel than what most of his legions of colleagues were churning out in the early `60s. The several instrumentals included here are fine examples of that, although some of them are a bit derivative. "Hamish" and "Dandelion River Run" are my favorites among these.
The vocal tracks are a mixed bag. Richard's range was quite limited, but some of these songs demonstrate that he knew how to work within those limits. Mimi, surprisingly to me, sounded nothing like her sister but had a great voice in her own right. Together, they were most effective when they didn't try too hard to be innovative or political. "Pack Up Your Sorrows" suffers from the fact that Judy Collins recorded a far-superior version (with Richard backing her up on dulcimer) immediately after the original was released, which has ever since overshadowed it. But nonetheless, it's still a beautiful song and their harmonies are surprisingly effective. "Reflections in a Crystal Wind," with its wistful lyrics and lilting melody, might be their all-time best vocal performance. "Another Country" and "Children of Darkness" are nearly as good.
And when they did try too hard to be innovative or political? They still had their moments: "The Falcon," an allegorical anti-war song, is terrific, with dark lyrics against a deceptively pretty melody. "Morgan the Pirate" foreshadows country-rock years before that term was coined, and "Sellout Agitation Waltz" and "House Un-American Blues Activity Dream" feature clever lyrics and a rollicking backdrop like that found on Dylan's earliest "electric" songs. On the other hand, their best-known "electric" song, "Hard Lovin' Loser," hasn't aged particularly well (they sound more like Sonny and Cher than Richard and Mimi), while "Michael, Andrew and James" tries a bit too hard to sound poetic and folky about a subject every songwriter in America seemed to be addressing that year. "Reno Nevada" features an acoustic and electric guitar arrangement at a time when this was still quite groundbreaking, but their vocal performance is bizarre: Mimi hums in the lead while Richard sings the actual words in the background. I can't imagine what they were thinking on that one.
Overall, though, it's a nice collection from a duo that deserves to be remembered for their music as well as their biographies. Bobby and Joanie they weren't, but who was?
--.......2003-11-15
There's a quality about the Farinas that suggests an extreme confidence and mastery of their own fortune that starts with their real lives and bleeds into their music. After college Richard was nothing more than a very talented writer who thought it would be hip to play music so he taught himself the dulcimer and quickly developed a unique, rhythmic approach to the instrument that hadn't been explored yet. Tired of his first folk-singing diva, Carolyn Hester, he hooked up with another gorgeous brunette who just happened to sing and play a mean acoustic in Mimi, who also just happened to be the sister of the biggest name in folk music. Even though Richard couldn't sing, he of course pulled off dual harmonies and even lead.
He was buddies with Dylan who was jealous of him for being maybe the only person who could make him look like a little boy in terms of talent, swagger and presence, and like Dylan, Richard was interested in taking folk outside of the box, so to speak, by adding a backbeat and electricity. It was a destiny they fulfilled simultaneously, and don't let anyone tell you different. Dylan was on the rock trip, but the Farinas were into something more worldly when it came to instrumentation and content. They were adding some rock, but also Mediterranean sounds, Irish sounds and mountain sounds, and these influences gave Richard's lyrics a more timeless quality than Dylan's, like he was speaking truths that were always there instead of street tales that were, and are, dependent on civilization.
The Farinas had the ability to be cutting and street-wise one minute ('Sell-Out Agitation Waltz', 'Hard-Loving Loser') and achingly fragile the next ('Children of Darkness', 'Miles'), and sometimes they even achieved both in the same song ('The Falcon'). Their brief acoustic instrumentals are all jewel boxes in their own right, and in the context of their other songs seem to signify interludes where we and they step back, take a deep breath and regain balance.
Their first record, 'Celebrations For A Grey Day' is a major statement for a debut, laying the duo's blueprint for their second release, 'Reflections In A Crystal Wind,' which is like an impossibly prettier flower growing out of one you never expected to be surpassed. The Farinas were on such a level of perfect taste and expression on that second record that it's almost inconceivable what they could have done had Richard not died. I don't wet my pants easily, and this is the first time I've done it in a review, but 'Children of Darkness' and 'Bold Marauder' might be the only songs by anybody that can bring me to the verge of tears in the right situation. Even the instrumentals on 'Reflections...' are taken a step further in length and scope ('Dopico' and 'Miles'). It's desert island, brothers and sisters.
I don't sweat 'untimely' deaths, as in the case of Richard, because there's no sense in arguing with nature. As it was, he left only great work, and how many of us can say that?
A Rediscovered Masterpiece.......2000-01-30
REFLECTING ON A GREAT LOSS.......1999-12-01
Under 30 & wondering whether? Go man go girl go! Immerse.........1999-10-07
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