Profile of Mimi Baez Fariña on Famous Like Me

Mimi Baez Fariña (April 30, 1945 – July 18, 2001) was a singer, songwriter, and activist.

Her older sister, Joan Baez, is a folk music legend. Fariña married novelist, musician and composer Richard Fariña in 1963, and the two collaborated on a number of influential folk albums, most notably "Celebrations for a Grey Day" (1965) and "Reflections in a Crystal Wind" (1966). After Richard Fariña's death in a 1966 motorcycle accident, Mimi remarried and continued to perform, sometimes recording and touring with either her sister Joan, or folksinger Tom Jans.

In 1974, Fariña founded Bread and Roses, a non-profit organization, designed to bring free music and entertainment to hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons, initially in the San Francisco Bay area, and later nationally. Bread & Roses still remains in operation, producing 500 shows per year. The organization's name came from 1912 poem by James Oppenheim, Bread and Roses (inspired by a garment workers' strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts), which states "we need bread, but we need roses too."

Though she continued to sing in her later years, releasing an album in 1985 and performing sporadically, Fariña devoted most of her time to running Bread and Roses. She died of lung cancer in 2001 at age 56.

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