Richard and Mimi Fariña

[mandocrustacean]

I really like the songs they wrote and have been into them for quite some time and would like to try playing some of their songs on mando and am eventually going to get a mountain dulcimer. Has anyone out there tried their songs on mando or does anyone know where I can find some chords? If you haven't heard them check them out-great stuff.

[Rich Michaud]

Didn't either Richard or Mimi write the book "Its [or I've]been down so long it look like up to me"-a great little book from the 1960s ? Did he die in a motocyle accident? I have one of their LPs stashed away somewhere...

[Ken]

Here is a link to try for The Richard Farina Dulcimer Book, http://www.richardandmimi.com/dulcimerbook.html
I have an ancient copy and just did a Google search on the book title. Lots of great songs, but less than half of them have the chords identified.
Ken.

[A-junior]

Richard Farina wrote "Been Down So Long..." #There's a very interesting recent bio of Richard & Mimi Farina, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez called "Positively Fourth Street."

[Enric]

Baez' first autobiography, "Daybreak," published in '68, includes a touching chapter on Richard Farina.

I think his "Pack Up Your Sorrows" would work in a bluegrass arrangement with a mandolin chop.

[Martin Jonas]

Two tunes are easy to get: "Birmingham Sunday" is the same tune as "The False Bride" and is in the Digital Tradition. Nice tune to pick on mandolin. The tune for "Pack Up Your Sorrows" is also in the Digital Tradition, copied from a Judy Collins songbook. The tune for "Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood" is borrowed from "My Lagan Love", but I don't have a tune for that one either.

Martin

[Strado Len]

Interestingly, Pack Up Your Sorrows was written by Farina with Joan Baez' older sister, Pauline Marden.

Farina went for a motorcycle ride, as a passenger, after his birthday party. He was not wearing a helmet. The driver, who was wearing a helmet, survived.

[mandocrustacean]

I've tracked down a version of "Pack up your sorrows" done by Iris Dement and Louden Wainwright III. Its pretty good.

[Strado Len]

My band, Fred's Mobile Homes, also recorded the song (I sing lead). It got a fair amount of airplay on Gene Shay's Folk program in Philly.

[Don Grieser]

Pack Up Your Sorrows is a wonderful song. The chord progression is pretty straight (I IV I V) as I remember. "If somehow you could pack up your sorrows, and give them all to me. You would lose them, I know how to use them, Give them all to me." Great chorus.

[Steve S.]

Bob Dylan refers to Richard Farina in a verse of Visions of Johanna....."little boy lost he takes himself so seriously/ he brags of his misery he likes to live dangerously/ and when bringing her name up (Joan Baez) speaks of a farewell kiss to me (a Farina song, Morgan the Pirate)....."