Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña

by David Hajdu Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Overview

This is the candid, mesmerizing, and often intimate account of how four young people-Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña-gave rise to a modern-day bohemia and created the enduring sound and style of the 1960s.

Even before they became lovers in 1963, Dylan and Joan Baez were seen as the reigning king and queen of folk music. But their songs and their public images grew out of their association with Joan's younger sister, Mimi, a musician in her own right, and Richard Fariña, the roguish novelist Mimi married when she was seventeen. Their rise from scruffy coffeehouse folksingers to pop stars comes about through their complex interpersonal relationships, as the young Dylan courts the famous Joan to further his career, Fariña woos Mimi while looking longingly on her older sister, and Fariña's friend Thomas Pynchon keeps an eye on their amours from afar.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A hauntingly evocative blend of biography, musicology, and pop culture history.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“This ambitious four-headed biographical narrative...vividly re-creates the folk era.” —Terrence Rafferty, GQ

“In a teetering stack of Dylan biographies and commentaries, [this is] the one new publication of distinction and clarity.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker

JUN/JUL 03 - AudioFile

This engrossing book takes us back to the late ’50s and early ’60s to explore the lives and loves of four seminal folk performers: Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Richard Fariña, and Mimi Baez Fariña. Narrator Bernadette Dunne performs character voices for each person quoted in the book. Thus, we get what amounts to her imitations of Dylan et al., which is disconcerting and distracting. Dunne has a wonderful voice; it’s confident, pleasant, and cool. Except for Dylan’s distinctive voice, though, we don’t know whether she’s being true to the other principals. In fiction, a narrator can create. In nonfiction, creativity leads to caricature. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169661583
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	06/25/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged

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