Richard Fariña's tragically short odyssey began in Brooklyn in 1937. Its places included Cornell University, London, Paris, Northern Ireland, Havana - once while Castro's army was entering the country - cities and countryside across America and Europe. Its roles included poet, composer, IRA revolutionary, singer, dulcimer-player, novelist - always developing and refining his own unique insights into the world and himself. Son of an Irish mother and Cuban father, his travels seemed a journey to touch the world and then realize it in his writing. At eighteen he fought with the Irish Republican Army, then on to Cuba and then to college. He left Cornell to live in Europe, and, in Paris, began his widely acclaimed novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, some four hours - as Fariña described it - "after I finished work as a blind harmonica player." In France he met Mimi Baez, and in 1963 they were married and returned to California. Performing together they helped revitalize the California folk scene, and the memory of Richard and Mimi triumphantly singing despite dismal summer downpour at the Newport Folk Festival has become almost a mythic moment of these summer concerts. Their first two Vanguard albums, Celebrations for a Gray Day and Reflections in a Crystal Wind were spectacularly successful. Their third album called Memories has just been released. In 1966, two days after the publication of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, Richard Fariña was killed in a motorcycle accident near Carmel, California. Having described the American Experience, Richard Fariña quickly became a part of it - a part with special and personal meaning for American youth. Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone brings together the best of Richard Fariña's shorter writings, stories, poems, essays and song lyrics, many of which have never been published. Not only do they show Fariña's mature talent as a writer, they also serve a sort of autobiography providing a unique glimpse into his life and dreams. Joan Baez, Fariña's sister-in-law, has provided a compassionate introduction, and Mimi Fariña has supplied notes which offer a deep, touching insight into Richard Fariña's journey - a journey we have all taken in part or dream of taking someday. Jacket designed by Eric von Schmidt