's Best of 2001
David Hajdu (pronounced HAY-doo), the prizewinning author of the magisterial jazz biography Lush Life, now steam-cleans the legend of the lost folk generation in Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. What a ripping read! It's like an invitation to the wildest party Greenwich Village ever saw. You feel swept up in the coffeehouse culture that transformed ordinary suburban kids into ragged, radiant avatars of a traditional yet bewilderingly new music. Hajdu's sociomusical analysis is as scholarly as (though less arty than) Greil Marcus's work; he deftly sketches the sources and evolving styles of his ambitious, rather calculating subjects, proving in the process that genius is not individual--it's rooted in a time and place. Hajdu says Dylan heisted many early tunes (e.g., "Maggie's Farm" from Pete Seeger's "Down on Penny's Farm"): "Dylan [told] a radio interviewer that he felt as if his music had always existed and he just wrote it down ... [in fact], much of his early work had existed as other writers' melodies, chord structures, or thematic ideas." But Dylan and company made it all their own, and Hajdu vividly evokes the scenes they made.

Positively 4th Street is very much a group portrait. When something amazing happens, Hajdu puts you right there. The unknown Baez barefoot in the rain, bedazzling the Newport Jazz Festival and becoming immortal overnight. The irresistibly irresponsible Fariña talking his folk-star wife out of shooting him dead with his own pistol. The "little spastic gnome" Dylan transmogrified into greatness onstage, bashing Joan with the searing lyrics of "She Belongs to Me." A stoned Fariña advising Dylan to cynically hitch his wagon to Joan's rising star and "start a whole new genre. Poetry set to music, but not chamber music or beatnik jazz, man... poetry you can dance to."

The book is as delectably gossipy as Vanity Fair (one of Hajdu's employers). Richard married the exceedingly young beauty Mimi and helmed their career, but he might have dumped her for big sister Joan, whose madcap humor and verbal wit harmonized with his--except that he ineptly killed himself on a motorcycle first. Bob mumblingly courted both sisters, but when he cruelly taunted the insecure Joan, Mimi yanked his hair back until he cried. The account of Bob and Joan's musical-erotic passion is first-rate music history and uproarious soap opera. Hajdu's research is prodigious--even Fariña's close chum Thomas Pynchon granted interviews--and his anecdotes are often off-the-cuff funny: "[Rock manager Albert Grossman] was easy to deal with.... It wasn't till maybe two days after you would see Albert that you'd realize your underwear had been stolen." Full disclosure: Hajdu was one of my long-ago bosses at Entertainment Weekly, but that's certainly not why I heartily endorse this book. It's scholarship with a human face, akin to "poetry you can dance to." --Tim Appelo


From Publishers Weekly
Sometimes, gifted people intersect at the perfect moment and spark a cultural movement. According to acclaimed biographer David Hajdu (Lush Life), Joan and Mimi Baez, Dylan, and Farina were of that brand of fated genius, and via romantic and creative trysts, they invented 1960s folk and its initially maligned offshoot, folk rock. But their convergence hardly emblematizes the free-loving media version of the 1960s. Egos--especially Joan Baez's and Dylan's--clashed, jealousies flared, romance was strategic. Hajdu does not dwell on Dylan's thoughtless, well-documented breakup with Joan Baez after riding to fame on her flowing skirts. Instead, he spotlights Joan's younger sister, Mimi, a skilled guitarist in her own right, and her husband, novelist-musician Farina. After divorcing leading folkster Carolyn Hester, the disarmingly groovy Farina captivated teenage Mimi via love letters, and, but for his untimely death, might have pursued Joan. Though Farina comes off as more opportunistic than Dylan, Hajdu compellingly asserts that Farina, not Dylan, invented folk rock and provided fodder for Dylan's trademark sensibilities. Hajdu provides a skillfully wrought, honest portrait that neither sentimentalizes nor slams the countercultural heyday. Photos not seen by PW. (June)Forecast: Hajdu's reputation and Dylan's 60th birthday on May 24 will win the book attention.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
With the explosive early 1960s folk revival as backdrop, Hajdu (Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, LJ 5/15/96) entertainingly recounts this downright Shakespearean tale of Folk Queen Joan Baez falling for the Ass, Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, Joan's younger sister, Mimi, succumbs to the spell of the charming writer Richard Fari$a, and the two become a highly regarded folk-singing duo in their own right. Little does Mimi suspect that she is a convenient way for Richard to get closer to Joan. Tragedy strikes the foursome as Dylan dumps Baez once his fame eclipses hers, and Fari$a is killed in a motorcycle accident on Mimi's 21st birthday, two days after the publication of his first novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. Though Dylan and Baez will sell this book, the real star is the colorful but controlling rogue, Fari$a, whose star was swiftly rising at the time of his death. Hajdu pulled off a coup in winning the participation of reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon, who was a close friend of Fari$a's. Recommended for Dylan fans and enthusiasts of the 1960s folk revival.-DLloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Hajdu's group bio starts with the story of Joan and Mimi Baez's childhood in the Stanford University community. The girls saw Pete Seeger at a 1954 Democratic Party fund-raiser, and his message of "down with the aristocracy of the Hit Parade, up with egalitarian amateurism" affected them deeply. Later they became involved with two seminal figures of the 1960s folk music scene, Bob Dylan and Richard Farina. The senior Baezes didn't care for Farina. "He wasn't terribly handsome . . . [but] neither was Hitler. Hitler had charisma. Richard was terrifically charismatic," mused mother Baez. Joan suspected Farina of courting Mimi to get close to her, the rising star. But Farina was serious and successful in his pursuit of Mimi, and glibly advised Dylan about Joan, "You need somebody like her to do your songs. She's your ticket . . . start screwing Joan Baez." The Dylan riposte? "I think I'll do that. But I don't want her singing none of my songs." For its bons mots as well as its revelations, like whose mom had a lesbian liaison, this is one of the finest pop music bios. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"A hauntingly evocative blend of biography, musicology and pop cultural history . . ." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"[A] lovely madeleine of a book" (The New York Times) about the intertwined lives of the sixties' most gifted young foursome.



Book Description
When twenty-five-year-old Bob Dylan wrecked his motorcycle near Woodstock in 1966 and dropped out of the public eye, he was already recognized as a genius, a youth idol with an acid wit and a barbwire throat; and Greenwich Village, where he first made his mark, was unquestionably the center of youth culture.

In Positively 4th Street, David Hajdu recounts the emergence of folk music from cult practice to popular and enduring art form as the story of a colorful foursome: not only Dylan but also his part-time lover Joan Baez -- the first voice of the new generation; her sister Mimi -- beautiful, haunted, and an artist in her own right; and Mimi's husband, Richard Fariña, a comic novelist (Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me) who invented the worldly-wise bohemian persona that Dylan adopted -- some say stole -- and made his own.

A national bestseller in hardcover, acclaimed as "one of the best books about music in America" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post), Positively 4th Street is that rare book with a new story to tell about the 1960s -- about how the decade and all that it is now associated with were created in a fit of collective inspiration, with an energy and creativity that David Hajdu has captured on the page as if for the first time.



About the Author
David Hajdu is the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn. Lately he has written for Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in Manhattan.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Confirmed baby boomers will know instantly that this book borrows its title from a 1965 Bob Dylan song. The book covers the same combustible period, a time when Dylan snapped into the lives of other future counterculture heroes. Billy Strayhorn biographer David Hadju threads his narrative through the heady interactions of Dylan, singer Joan Baez, her mysterious bohemian sister, Mimi, and moody novelist Richard Fariña. Around the fringes of this engaging icon bio are Greenwich Village eccentrics and a California scribbler named Tom Pynchon.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Positively 4th Street is an account of how four young people - Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Fariña - gave rise to a modern-day bohemia and created the enduring sound and style of the 1960s.

The story of the transformation of folk music from antiquarian pursuit to era-defining art form has never been fully told. Hajdu, whose biography of Billy Strayhorn set a new standard for books about popular music, tells it as the story of a colorful foursome who were drawn together in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s and inspired a generation to gather around them.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times

A hauntingly evocative blend of biography, musicology and pop cultural history...[David Hajdu]...has discovered that within every movement, however pure, there is a healthy whiff of soap opera to be found.

Janet Maslin - New York Times

[With this] hauntingly evocative blend of biography, musicology and pop cultural history, it is as if David Hajdu has struck a tuning fork and summoned the spirit of the folk-singing 1960's all over again.

Publishers Weekly

Sometimes, gifted people intersect at the perfect moment and spark a cultural movement. According to acclaimed biographer Hajdu (Lush Life), Joan and Mimi Baez, Dylan and Fariña were of that brand of fated genius, and via romantic and creative trysts, they invented 1960s folk and its initially maligned offshoot, folk rock. But their convergence hardly emblematizes the free-loving media version of the 1960s. Egos especially Joan Baez's and Dylan's clashed, jealousies flared, romance was strategic. Hajdu does not dwell on Dylan's thoughtless, well-documented breakup with Joan Baez after riding to fame on her flowing skirts. Instead, he spotlights Joan's younger sister, Mimi, a skilled guitarist in her own right, and her husband, novelist-musician Fariña. After divorcing leading folkster Carolyn Hester, the disarmingly groovy Fariña captivated teenage Mimi via love letters and, but for his untimely death, might have pursued Joan. Though Fariña comes off as more opportunistic than Dylan, Hajdu compellingly asserts that Fariña, not Dylan, invented folk rock and provided fodder for Dylan's trademark sensibilities. Hajdu provides a skillfully wrought, honest portrait that neither sentimentalizes nor slams the countercultural heyday. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

With the explosive early 1960s folk revival as backdrop, Hajdu (Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn) entertainingly recounts this downright Shakespearean tale of Folk Queen Joan Baez falling for the Ass, Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, Joan's younger sister, Mimi, succumbs to the spell of the charming writer Richard Fariña, and the two become a highly regarded folk-singing duo in their own right. Little does Mimi suspect that she is a convenient way for Richard to get closer to Joan. Tragedy strikes the foursome as Dylan dumps Baez once his fame eclipses hers, and Fariña is killed in a motorcycle accident on Mimi's 21st birthday, two days after the publication of his first novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. Though Dylan and Baez will sell this book, the real star is the colorful but controlling rogue, Fariña, whose star was swiftly rising at the time of his death. Hajdu pulled off a coup in winning the participation of reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon, who was a close friend of Fariña's. Recommended for Dylan fans and enthusiasts of the 1960s folk revival. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10.]--Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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