Thrilling look into 60's American folk scene
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I began this book just flipping through some of the pages half-heartedly, found it really interesting, and went back to read from the beginning. I'm so glad I did, because this book was an addictive read.
I picked it up because I am a big Bob Dylan fan and I like some of Joan Baez's songs. I had never heard of the Farinas at all. This book gave me such interesting insight into their worlds, and how they all were interwoven together. Hajdu made these people the humans that they are, rather than the famous icons they are/have been. It is truthful, shocking and, at times, sad. I wanted to slap Bob for being so mean to Joan! The atmosphere was great; I could almost smell those coffee-houses and hear the fantastic music. It made me want to be there.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in these musicians, the 60's folk scene, or just want to read a good life story.
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Lost World
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David Hajdu evokes a lost world in his study of the Baez sisters, Richard Farina and Bob Dylan in the early sixties. An era when folk music was predominant and middle class boys and girls seemed to have the ability to change all kinds of evils from the "masters of war" to segregation just by sitting down and singing. Joan Baez's songs epitomised the times with her lovely but penetrating voice. Already very successful by the time the book starts Joan soon comes into contact with the rising Dylan as he made his mark on the coffee house folk circuit of New York. The book should not be seen purely as a biography of Dylan - this period in his professional life is already well documented by Scaduto and others - the facts such as his somewhat cynical use of Joan Baez to further his career are not new and Miss Baez is on record in this area herself. What is fresh about Hajdu's approach is that Dylan is seen mirrored in the eyes of the others- in the next room so to speak rather than in full view - so the world’s most notable singer-songwriter comes over as a little more human. A good example are his and party-animal Farina's wild adventures in swinging London. This is a sad book - there is a lot about change and the human condition - both on a global and on a personal level. JFK is assassinated and the dreams of the young audiences become less attainable. Farina dies young in a motorcycle accident
(on the very day of his book launch party) before reaching his full potential. The accomplished guitarist Mimi Farina Baez who became Farina's wife also failed to reach her potential - being perennially shadowed by the fame of her sister (Mimi died last year of cancer). Dylan of course had changed utterly as well and by the time of his own motorcycle accident at the close of Hajdu's book in 1966 had famously embraced the electric world of rock n roll. Dylan's legendary appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival is well covered. How much things have changed is demonstrated by the fact that 70,000 turned up then – compare this with the 15,000 reported for Dylan's first return date in 2002.
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worthwhile, informative, romantic/ inception of folk rock
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Here's what the U.K reviewers are missing in their assessments of "Positively 4th Street": the soundtrack of this amazing romantic saga. The music of Richard and Mimi holds up just fine to modern scrutiny. Any contemporary of the early protean talent of Bob Dylan (and it was as iconoclastic as the -whoosh- wow!- meat of Tom Wolfe, same era as comparison) and queen Joan was, believe me, aware and in awe of the best of the rest like R & M. The Farinas held such a romantic sway on us young idealists at the time, and then he was gone. Absolutely heady Romeo and Juliet stuff to us teens, these thwarted young lovers. With longer delayed tragic ending: Mimi Farina, the best guitarist of the 4 protagonists at the time, died of cancer about 2 months after this book's publication. And assessing the inception of folk rock was David Hadju's necessary task as investigative reporter: contemporaries were tiring of twinkly dinkly ballads, and Fairport Convention didn't exist yet.
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A different tack...
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An interesting,but wrongheaded attempt to put Farina into the centre of the early 60s action,the axis around which Dylan,Baez and even Pynchon revolved.He invented "folk rock",got the best looking Baez sister and was in the IRA.The fact that he was an ordinary prose writer,a less than incendiary songwriter and played the dulcimer all wrong is strangely skirted. Oh,and the "unidentified guitarist" in the photo from the British folk club is in fact Martin Carthy,who is mentioned several times in the text,and deserves a book far more than this chancer...(obviously couldn't ride a motorbike either,just like Bob.)
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bob growing up
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This is an absorbing tale of three over-achieving Americans and Mimi, in the interesting late Fifties/early Sixties. David Hajdu is very good on the commercial paradox of the folkies. He is also very good on the Baez sisters and Richard Fariña - two control freaks with Mimi as controllee. He is less good at Dylan because he ignores, or doesn't appreciate, the occasional flashes of brilliance in his early work which signposted how good he was to become. His relationship with Joanie is portrayed as professionally self-seeking, but she gained from it as he did. Joan Baez was a square, and benefited as much from Bob's hipness, approbation and authority as he did from the exposure she gave him. Hajdu is also deceptively selective in the quotes he cites from Bob's interviews at the time. Nonetheless, the book is compelling. I recommend it. We see this new guard establishing themselves and grappling with change with varying degrees of success. The keyword for the sixties was change, and no one was more mobile than Bob. Fariña died, Joan ossified and Mimi ... well, poor Mimi! Paul Warburton
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