Re: la rosa and Richard Farina

[Joel Bresler <joel.br...>]

Hi, Robert and others. This is a question that has interested me for a 
while. Nearly as I can reconstruct it, this is what happened.

Carolyn Hester did indeed learn the song from a song swapping group, in 
Greenwich village. (personal correspondence with the artist.) Her recording 
was released in 1962. I can dig out the studio recording dates if 
important, cuz they are listed on the Bear Family re-release, plus it was 
one of the very earliest recordings on which Bob Dylan appeared (second 
one?), playing harmonica, and so has been studied to death. (Unfortunately, 
he didn't play harmonica on that cut, which would have been REALLY 
delicious.) If the http://www.richardandmimi.com/sources.html site is 
correct and Farina was in the studio for his (then) wife Carolyn Hester's 
recording session, I don't think we need look too much further than that. 
Swallow Song appeared in 1965 on "Reflections in a Crystal Wind" -- don't 
know if it appears earlier. Again, it's registered at ASCAP if anyone is 
really curious for more information.

As for how the song ended up in the song swapping group, my guess is via 
the version in the Bikel songbook, since they are quite similar and both 
actually misspell the title as "Bibilicos". Note that Bikel has not 
actually recorded this song, though someone suggested earlier that he had 
and I'd be grateful for a correction. (So would the artist, I reckon, since 
he's told me in an email he didn't record it...)

All the best,

Joel

At 12:02 PM 5/2/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>    hi, Lucy mentioned that contrafact of "Los Bilbilicos" (La rosa
>    enflorece) by Richard Farina, known as The Swallow Song. I learned it
>    in fact long before learning the Sephardic original . But I've always
>    wondered where he GOT the tune to begin with; when he wrote the words
>    to The Swallow SOng it was longbefore the Judeo-Spanish song revival.
>    ANy ideas? thought maybe during his time in France? Judith
>
>
>Robert Rothstein's explanation may well be correct--I had never made the
>connection.  (And, btw, Carolyn Hester was Richard Farina's first wife--
>before Mimi-which makes it even more likely that he'd have learned songs
>from her.)
>
>I don't know if dating Carolyn Hester's recording session and Farina's
>composition of "A Swallow Song" (which is I believe its exact title) would
>help clarify matters--or maybe someday I can ask Carolyn Hester.
>
>As it happens, I *did* ask Mimi Farina this very question--where did he get
>this melody?  And fwiw, this is what she wrote me back:
>
>"I don't believe Dick was particularly conscious of the melody's origin,
>but I feel certain thyat he felt he'd picked it up when he was in Spain.
>He travelled through Spain during the summer of 1963--seeking the ghost of
>Hemingway, I'm sure."
>
>Richard Farina was--like Dylan and Woody Guthrie (but Woody was open [and
>unembarrassed] about it, unlike maybe the others--shameless about borrowing
>(or, Woody would say, "stealing") melodies for his songs.  In reference to
>his swiping an Irish melody for a different song, Mimi once wrote (not to
>me), "Dick had a way of plagiarizing that was not only bold but also
>endearingly forgivable."
>
>I've always found that pricelessly funny--even if it rather begs the
>question of whose forgiveness would, in fact, be required.
>
>Now I have to find Carolyn Hester (who did a coffeehouse concert in
>Cambridge a couple of years ago).
>
>--Robert Cohen
>
>
>
>
>



Joel Bresler
250 E. Emerson Rd.
Lexington, MA 02420
USA

781-862-4104 (Telephone & FAX)
joel(dot)br (at) verizon(dot)net

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