The Flames.

It Looked Like Up to Him. On April 30, 1966, the great folk-rock bard Richard Farina had just finished signing copies of his new and hot novel "I’ve Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me," which had been published two days earlier. At a party in Carmel Valley, California, celebrating wife Mimi’s 21st birthday party, he chose at the last minute to take a ride on a guest’s Harley-Davidson. The driver, Willie Hinds — who survived — was hitting 90 mph on a road designed for 30, and lost control. The bike went through a barbed-wire fence, and Farina was thrown off and killed instantly.

It’s interesting to note the timing. Dylan’s accident was only three months later. Dylan and Farina were friends, and rivals, too. The two albums Farina completed with Mimi are incandescent, and — like Dylan — he’d not only just gone electric, but played at the same Newport Folks Festival (in 1965) that changed Dylan’s direction. Who knows what Farina would have done, had he not taken that ride?