Mimi Fariña

Mimi Baez Farina was the younger sister of Joan Baez, a folk music legend, and a singer/activist in her own right. She was raised in Palo Alto, California, and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts while in her teens. While staying with her parents in Paris in 1963, Mimi met musician and novelist Richard Farina, and married him at the age of 17. They formed a folk music duo and, as “Mimi and Richard Farina”, they recorded two well-received albums in 1965 and 1966. But on Mimi’s 21st birthday, just two days after the publication of Richard’s first novel, he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Two years later, Mimi married radio DJ and producer Milan Melvin, but the marriage lasted less than two years. Mimi reverted to the surname Farina, saying “I’ll always love Dick. He was an impossible act to follow”. She continued to perform, record and tour with her sister Joan and other folk artists, and joined an improv comedy troupe in San Francisco in the 1970s.

In 1974, inspired by a tour of Sing Sing Prison with B.B. King, Mimi founded “Bread and Roses”, an organization which brings free music and entertainment to hospitals, nursing homes and prisons. Today, “Bread and Roses” produces 500 shows per year. Though she continued to sing and perform sporadically, releasing one solo album and collaborating with old friends, Mimi devoted most of her time to running “Bread and Roses”. She died of cancer at her home in Northern California in 2001.