This is going to be one of turq's cafe nostalgia raps. Be warned. There is no need to proceed unless the Subject line of this post means something to you.
Today, for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, possibly the gentle wind in my face on a warm September afternoon, I found myself thinking about Richard Fariña. With some fondness, because he was my first hero. Oh sure, I probably had childhood heroes, like Robin Hood or Zorro, but Fariña was really the first person I could point to as an adult as my personal hero. I think I first heard his name in a famous guitar shop in L.A. I walked in, heard some music I was unfamiliar with on the store's sound system, and gave it a little of my attention. Then I stopped dead in my tracks, because within a few seconds it had captured all of my attention. The song was "Another Country," and I was transfixed. I'd never heard anything like it before; it was *unique*. I walked to the counter, where the salesgirl, by now familiar with this syndrome, already had the album out and was ringing it up for me. :-) The album I walked away with changed my life. It was called "Celebrations For A Grey Day," and was by Richard and Mimi Fariña. I probably spent months -- no exaggeration -- listening to that album. His words just sung to me, on a level of resonance I'd never found before in the folk world, even in Dylan. Then came their next album, "Reflections In A Crystal Wind," and I was so hooked that I went out and bought a dulcimer and learned to play all of his parts. Not as well, but I could play them. Then I noticed that Fariña had a book coming out soon. I SO put myself on the waiting list for that one, and started looking for his next performance in my area so I could see him perform live. I never saw Richard Fariña perform live. He died in a motorcycle accident coming back from the initial launch party for his novel "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me." I didn't learn this until after I had finished reading the novel. Learning it caused me to reread it, and lament the passing of a great voice. It was a masterful novel, clearly somewhat autobiographical (it fictionalized some of his exploits partying down with Tom Pynchon at Cornell), and the writing was as masterful as his songwriting. Richard had a "singing voice" to his prose writing, one that I've found in other writer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen. Anyway, I credit that novel with setting me on a spiritual path. Go figure. It was about a drug-using, socially-unacceptable hippie (before that term had ever been invented), and it set me on a course to finding that bohemian subculture and immersing myself in it. And that eventually led to me to learning TM, and that led to progressively more interesting things. The odyssey inspired by Gnossos Papadopoulis continues, and continues to be interesting, 45 years later. Thank you, Richard. You done good by sharing your visions, as least as far as I am concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fari%C3%B1a <%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fari%C3%B1a> http://www.richardandmimi.com/index.html <http://www.richardandmimi.com/index.html> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYiYNg-pwD8 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYiYNg-pwD8> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiPvVk1ljUE <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiPvVk1ljUE> Any other closet Richard and Mimi Fariña fans here?
