THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,760) Mimi & Richard Fariña — “Hard Loving Loser”
Richard Fariña wrote this “sexy/goofy” (Bill Sherman, https://blogcritics.org/music-review-ian-sylvia-and-mimi/) “anti-conformity [folk/folk-rock] anthem[]” (Ed Whitelock, https://www.popmatters.com/richard-farina-plainsong-review) “about a very unlikely lady’s man” (Brendan Foreman, https://agreenmanreview.com/music-2/mimi-richard-farinas-pack-up-your-sorrows-best-of-the-vanguard-years/). “The free-living character in the song is quite similar to the protagonist in [his acclaimed] novel Been Down So Long, It Looks Like up to Me.” (Matthew Greenwald, https://www.allmusic.com/song/hard-lovin-loser-mt0001731064) The song is a hoot perfect for a hootenanny.
Bill Sherman writes that:
After their largely acoustic debut [LP], the duo quickly and confidently made electric guitar and piano inextricable parts of their music. Though this doesn’t seem like a big deal in the aftermath of folk-rock, in 1965 it was still a commercial gamble. Dylan’s notorious appearance at the July ’65 Newport Folk Fest was still fresh, and many folk devotees were divided as to whether electric guitars even belonged in the music. Today, however, it’s hard to imagine tracks like . . . “Hard-Loving Loser” without their plugged-in accompaniment.
Richie Unterberger writes of the Richard Fariña, the cult hero shrouded in mystery:
Richard Fariña was a noted counterculture author and folksinger in the early ’60s. Married for a time to folksinger Carolyn Hester [see #558, 1,283] , he was an early intimate of Bob Dylan [see #126, 823, 1,133, 1,162, 1,495, 1,599, 1,711] , and in fact recorded a collectable album with Dylan (playing under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt) and Ric Von Schmidt in 1963. After marrying Joan Baez’s sister, Mimi, he formed a folk-rock duo who released two acclaimed albums in the mid-’60s. Unlike folk-rock figureheads like the Byrds, the Fariñas were far more firmly rooted in folk than rock. Their recordings effectively flavored their material (mostly written by Fariña) with jangling electric guitars and a rhythm section, ably assisted by such session players as guitarist Bruce Langhorne . . . bassist Felix Pappalardi, and harmonica player John Hammond. The Fariñas themselves also played guitar, autoharp, and dulcimer. Least successful with blues, they recorded some effective Appalachian-flavored material, and several excellent bona fide mid-tempo folk-rockers and ballads. Their best songs effectively balanced world-wise, sardonic observations with good-natured, melodic optimism. The Fariñas’ promising career ended prematurely with the death of Richard Fariña in a motorcycle accident on his birthday in 1966. His novel of the same year, Been Down So Long It Looks Like up to Me, became a cult favorite.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/richard-mimi-fari%C3%B1a-mn0000850523#biography
Douglas Cooke goes deep:
Richard Fariña grew up in Brooklyn [to mother from Northern Ireland and a father from Cuba] . . . . [He] won a regents scholarship to Cornell University, where he enrolled in the Engineering program . . . . [b]ut he soon lost interest in Engineering and switched to English . . . . He began writing stories and poems for the college literary magazine, Cornell Writer, where Thomas Pynchon was junior editor. Fariña and Pynchon became friends . . . . [H]e dropped out toward the end of his senior year in 1959. Moving back to New York City, Fariña took a job . . . at an advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. . . . It may be that Fariña’s counter-culture sentiments had not yet fully formed when he took the job, or it may be that the job itself was so stifling and boring that it drove him to that revulsion toward conformity that later fuelled his lyrics . . . . Working in Manhattan, not far from the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village, Fariña soon made a conscious decision not to sell out, not to throw his creative life away for the dull security of a nine-to-five job. He began publishing stories in magazines and mixed with the bohemians at The White Horse Tavern, the legendary Greenwich Village haunt visited by poets, artists, folksingers and wayfarers . . . . It was at the White Horse that he met the radiant Carolyn Hester in 1959. Carolyn was a successful folksinger . . . . Months later Richard . . . attended a concert of hers at Gerde’s Folk City. Richard in turn was smitten with her, and pursued her relentlessly. After a whirlwind courtship they married . . . . Having quit his job at the advertising agency, Richard had no income and gradually wiggled himself into Carolyn’s career, appointing himself her agent. Soon he began to insinuate himself onto the stage, reading his poetry between her sets. . . . Perhaps one of the most important moments in Fariña’s life was when he and Carolyn visited Kentucky-born folksinger Jean Ritchie at a party in New York City and he became fascinated with her dulcimer. Charmed by the eerie sound of the folk instrument, he took lessons . . . . gradually Fariña promoted himself from agent to sideman on stage with Carolyn. . . . Richard’s early entries into the music world smatter of fraudery. Barely able to play anything as yet, he managed to appear onstage with Carolyn Hester at the Edinburgh Folk Festival in 1962, make a BBC television appearance with her, and record an EP of four songs with the Scottish duet Rory and Alex McEwen . . . . Carolyn began to resent this instrusion into her career. She left him in the fall of 1962 . . . . Another development that had precipitated the divorce was . . . where Richard met Mimi Baez. . . . the little sister of Joan Baez . . . . After Carolyn left Europe in frustration, Richard and Mimi’s surreptitious relationship began. . . . Richard and Mimi were married secretly in Paris, unbeknownst to the Baez family. Following Mimi’s graduation from high school, they moved Carmel, California . . . . Despite the Baezes’ initial mistrust, Fariña soon won them over with his humor and charm. In their little cabin Richard and Mimi began playing together, and developed the unique guitar-dulcimer duet that made them absolutely unique in the folk music world. . . . His attempts to collaborate with Carolyn caused friction in their marriage because she was already an established musician, and Richard at that time had little to contribute on that level. By the time he met Mimi, he was a better musician, and, more importantly, I suspect that they identified with each other as unacknowledged people who had something to contribute. Mimi had been entirely eclipsed by her sister’s sudden fame, and Richard had been struggling since Cornell to make a name for himself . . . . Mimi was the superior musician, while Richard had literary talent for writing original songs. They debuted at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1964 and soon won a recording contract with Vanguard, Joan’s label. They recorded their first album that fall . . . . Though the album’s release was delayed until April of the next year, the achievement gave the new folk duo the confidence to brave the Cambridge folk scene and began making club appearances in December of 1964. . . . Mimi & Dick Fariña, as they were now called, made a splash amid the more eclectic, vibrant, and increasingly competitive folk scene of 1964-65. They won awards in a Broadside magazine poll, winning in three categories–Best Group, Best Newcomers, and Best Female Vocalist. They befriended Eric Andersen, Debbie Green, Judy Collins, Geoff & Maria Muldaur and many others. In July they performed at the Newport Folk Festival, leading a songwriting workshop and a dulcimer workshop. Their reputation seemed to grow with each performance, and by the time they headlined the Newcomers Concert on the third day of festival, they were superstars. . . . When one watches this moment in the film Festival, a documentary of the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963, 1965, and 1966, and sees the ecstatic look on Richard’s face, one imagines that this must have been one of the happiest moments of his life, an undisputable victory after years of searching and laboring in anonymity.. . . . Richard had begun [his] novel in 1960, based largely on the experiences of his college years and his travels. . . . In the last six months or so of his life, Fariña completed his novel with an agonizing effort that left his hand paralyzed. He also recorded a second LP [Reflections in a Crystal Wind, including “Hard Loving Loser”] with Mimi . . . . They returned to Carmel, California to help Joan Baez found the Institute for the Study of Non-Violent Action, returned briefly to New York to perform on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest TV show and celebrate his 29th birthday with his family in Brooklyn, and have a publication party for the novel at the Random House offices. . . . [They] attended an autograph party on April 30, 1966, at Thunderbird Bookstore in Carmel Valley, then went to the home of Mimi’s sister, Pauline, for a surprise party for Mimi’s 21st birthday. At this party Pauline’s friend, Willie Hinds, pulled up on a Harley. Hinds took Richard for a ride on the bike on the rolling hills of Carmel, and they wiped out, throwing Richard across two fences and into an embankment. Hinds survived; Richard was killed instantly. We will never know why Richard left the party to go on that motorcycle ride, or why he gave Mimi his car keys and wallet before he left.
Here they are live:
Here they are on Rainbow Quest:
1,761) Gwynn Owen — “Hard Lovin Loser”
“Hard Loving Loser” has been frequently covered, especially in the ’60s, including by Judy Collins and Dana Gillespie (who is a favorite of mine (see #11, 106)) — but none of the covers work for me — except that of New Zealand singer Gwynn Owen. She turns the song into a glorious, sly, hip pop-rock triumph.
Gwynn Owen was . . .
a pop vocalist from Wellington[, New Zealand], regarded by many as the best woman singer of the sixties in that part of the country. She had a very powerful voice that could manage a wide vocal range, as was evidenced by the singles she released. Gwynn recorded for HMV releasing two singles in 1966 called “In My Room”/”Treat Him As I Would” and “That’s When Happiness Began”/”Take A Look”. One more single came in 1967 called “This Place”/”Hard Lovin’ Loser”. Her first two singles featured well on the Wellington local charts.
Here is Judy Collins:
Here are Collins and the Smothers Brothers:
Here is Dana Gillespie:
Here is Webster’s New Word:
Here is Marti Shannon:
Here is Gloria Loring:
Here is Anki:
Here is Catherine McKinnon:
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