They all came out for Mimi.
Eighty-year-old patriarch Pete Seeger and the beatific folk queen Joan Baez were there. So were rock stars Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, the sedate Boz Scaggs and the rough-hewn Kris Kristofferson. Comedians Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin and Father Guido Sarducci leavened the earnest atmosphere.
It was as distinguished a group as there is in folk-music circles.
Mimi Farina is a real-life princess. She doesn't wear a crown -- her head, in fact, was wrapped in a silver turban -- but she is folk-music royalty. She put out the call to her peers and colleagues in acoustic music to join her 25th anniversary celebration for Bread & Roses, the Marin County organization that brings music and light into prisons, hospitals and old-age homes. They came.
Roses covered the stage and lobby of the War Memorial Opera House on Monday night. And Farina ended the evening, a fund-raiser for the organization, dancing between Tom Johnston and John McFee of the Doobie Brothers, waving handfuls of roses over her head.
She is nurse to this soulful community project, which will present 500 shows for shut-ins this year. She has scratched, struggled and scraped her way through most of the organization's history just to keep the doors open. Hovering over the evening was the knowledge that the ever-elegant Farina, 54, was diagnosed with lung cancer in December.
Dressed in a silvery sequined Jessica McClintock gown, Farina addressed the subject with characteristic lightheartedness in her opening remarks.
"I don't have bad-hair days anymore," she said. "I have bad-scarf days."
FARIÑA'S 'SISTER JOAN'
She introduced "my sister Joan," and Baez strode out and immediately brought it all back home with the opening lines of "There But for Fortune" -- "Show me the prison, show me the jail . . ." For more than three hours, one after another, the celebrated entertainers came out, sang a couple of songs, did a little comedy and brought out the next performer.
Highlights were strewn everywhere. By the time Seeger led the cast in "Guantanamera," backed by a 22-member choir, Vukani Mawethu, to close the concert, the audience had sat through the aural equivalent of a seven-course banquet.
There were sublimely graceful moments -- Scaggs' aching "My Funny Valentine" backed by a supple jazz quartet -- and there was ridiculous irreverence (Williams, his hand inside his pants zipper, talking about downloading expandable files).
There were Browne and Raitt joining voices on "My Opening Farewell," mem bers of the choir pitching in on the chorus of "Listen to the Music" with Johnston and his makeshift Doobies, Baez and Raitt dancing together onstage as Seeger led the crowd in singing "If I Had a Hammer."
BAEZ AS 'BOB'
Lily Tomlin updated a couple of her beloved routines (Sister Boogie Woman has a Web site). Baez, dressed in men's clothing, her face hidden under a hat and introduced by Farina simply as "Bob," came out and croaked a scratchy "Blowin' in the Wind," reprising a gag the two sisters pulled off at one of the Bread & Roses festivals at the Greek Theatre many years ago.
The performers all paid tribute to Bread & Roses -- "Let's have 25 more," said Scaggs in his understated way -- and avoided any references to Farina's health. Raitt praised her courage, but that's as far as it went. There was no gloom. Yet Farina's luminous presence loomed over the concert.
She has been the heart, soul, chief cook and bottle washer of Bread & Roses since day one. It was her compassion that provided the vision of bringing music and laughter to people who couldn't go somewhere to get it -- at hospices, homeless shelters, prisons, hospitals, "basically any place that serves Jell-O," said Sarducci.
She was hardly onstage, but it was all her evening. ♥
Written By
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Pop Music Editor
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| Photo by Ken Friedman |
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| Carly Simons, Mimi Fariña and Jackson Browne, Photo by Jay Blakesberg |
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This is Pete Seeger with Robin Williams, Mimi Farina, Bonnie Raitt, The Doobie Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Jackson Browne, Kris Kristofferson, Father Guido Sarducci and Lily Tomlin" | Photo by Jay Blakesberg |
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| Photo by Jay Blakesberg |
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| Photo by Jay Blakesberg |
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| Joan Baez and her sister Mimi Fariña embraced at the Bread and Roses Concert at the War Memorial Opera House,SF. by Eric Luse /The Chronicle Eric Luse |
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| Joan Baez and her sister Mimi Fariña embraced at the Bread and Roses Concert at the War Memorial Opera House,SF. by Eric Luse /The Chronicle Eric Luse |
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| Photo by Ked Friedman |
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| Tom Johnston, Mimi Fariña and John McFee throwing roses, Bread & Roses 25th Anniversary Benefit Concert at the San Francisco Opera House, 1999. Photo by Susan Hyde. ♥ |
Five minutes later, it was all over. Red roses were tossed from the s tage, others were plucked from a huge lobby display, and 3,300 fans left the Opera House with their roses and a better feeling about life.
Source
Marin's most beloved comedian, Michael Pritchard, who gave up a Hollywood career for a life of volunteerism, has a favorite new saying borrowed from Winston Churchill:
"You earn a living with what you get, but you get a life with what you give. "
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| Mimi Fariña received a standing ovation as she walked on stage at the Bread and Roses Concert at the War Memorial Opera House, SF. by Eric Luse /The Chronicle Eric Luse |
Marin's most beloved comedian, Michael Pritchard, who gave up a Hollywood career for a life of volunteerism, has a favorite new saying borrowed from Winston Churchill:
"You earn a living with what you get, but you get a life with what you give. "
"But the best way to honor her memory is to follow her lead and strive to leave the world a better place than it would be without your having been here. Pick up your guitar and play a few songs for someone who can't get out and needs the healing power of music in their life."
Acoustic Guitar, Nov. 2001. p. 17-18. "Mimi Fariña, 1945-2001." By Rick Turner
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