Don has done a great job above with his short biography of Richard Dyer-Bennet. The Last Minstrel is an excellent work.

I am puzzled by this statement in the first post:

"an accomplished banjo player"

Dyer-Bennet was certainly an accomplished classical guitar play, and a master of the lute as well. I'm unaware of him ever playing the banjo.

He also composed propaganda songs during World War 2 for the Office of Secret Service. I have a few of those but they were rapid response compositions related to specific events.

When Dyer-Bennet began professionally performing in the 1940s there was no market for "folk songs." So he presented himself as a "minstrel" when applying for club bookings as an entertainer.

He was also a wonderful storyteller. Check out his recording from Smithsonian of Georgian Folk Tales. My favorite as a child was "The Man Who Was Full of Fun."

His recording "1601" certainly put the criticism that he was "prudish" to bed. He thoroughly enjoyed singing bawdy drinking songs with our friends the Pulestons while he was resident in Brookhaven, Long Island, in the 1950s. Every year my family would receive a recording from the Pulestons of one of their singing parties. It's rare to hear the environment recorded along with such songs: the laughter and chatter, and the occasional clatter of glassware, along with the groans and moans.

Charlie Ipcar