Search - Mimi & Richard Farina :: Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years

Less than giants, more than footnotes

David A. Bede | Singapore | 12/18/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The one problem with the Farinas' music is the inevitable high expectations that come with their close association with folk royalty, although that may well also be the reason why they got a recording contract in the first place. If you can set aside the preconceptions brought on by whom they were related to and associated with (and Richard's tall tales about himself, several of which are repeated in the liner notes to this CD - no, he didn't really run guns for the IRA or fight alongside Castro), their catalog proves to be an eclectic but nice enough one.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?"