Positively 4th Street, David Hajdu
Positively 4th Street, David Hajdu
1 Rating(s)
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Positively 4th Street
The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña

Author: David Hajdu

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Unabridged: 12 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2005

Synopsis

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.

About David Hajdu

David Hajdu is the author of Lush Life and Positively 4th Street. He lives in Manhattan and writes for the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, New Republic, and New York Review of Books.

About Bernadette Dunne

Bernadette Dunne is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dave on February 05, 2025

I just read Suze Rotolo’s memoir about the early sixties with Dylan in Greenwich Village, so it made sense to read this book, which in part focuses on Dylan and the woman that “replaced” Rotolo, Joan Baez. Rotolo is not much mentioned in this book except as Dylan’s first real girlfriend--a child of......more

Goodreads review by Kirk on December 28, 2007

I picked this up during a time I was really into Farina and was wishing there was a good biography of him and the story behind BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME. It's not many people, after all, who can claim to have gone to college with Thomas Pynchon and C. Michael Curtis and then become a......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on January 04, 2012

I considered reading Positively 4th Street when it first came out, but never got around to it. I considered reading Hajdu's second book, Lush Life, but never got around to it. But when The Ten-Cent Plague, his third book, was published I couldn't resist, it seemed like it would be such a fun book an......more

Goodreads review by Larry on May 29, 2021

I am not quite sure how I could have been unaware of this book since it was published in 2001. The audible book that I listen to was created in 2002. It is odd in a way that I am coincidentally listening to this book this week which began on Monday with the 80th birthday of Bob Dylan. How could Bob......more

Goodreads review by Cyndi on September 10, 2008

Man, Joan Baez is fucking irritating.......more

Quotes

“A hauntingly evocative blend of biography, musicology, and pop cultural history.” New York Times

 “One of the best books about music in America.” Washington Post

“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.” Amazon.com, editorial review

“Hajdu provides a skillfully wrought, honest portrait that neither sentimentalizes nor slams the countercultural heyday.” Publishers Weekly

“With the explosive early 1960s folk revival as backdrop, Hajdu…entertainingly recounts this downright Shakespearean tale of Folk Queen Joan Baez falling for the Ass, Bob Dylan.” Library Journal

“Narrated by Dunne, this documentation of four talented lives is related in a clear voice that changes intonation for each character. An enlightening and mesmerizing social history of the 1960s.” Kliatt 

“The real star of the Positively 4th Street audiobook is narrator Bernadette Dunne. Her voice is reminiscent of actress Jean Arthur, which filmmaker Frank Capra said sounded like ‘a thousand tinkling bells.’ Crystal clear and flawlessly intoned, she gives just a flavor of the famous parties’ distinctive dictions without attempting full-out impressions.” Audiobookstoday.com

Awards

  • National Book Critics Circle Award
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