Richard Dyer-Bennet info. nice.

Subject: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:10 PM

Hi. Came upon this by accident last night. There's a brief biography for anyone who wants a "quick look" into one of the pretty important figures of the folk revival, and quite a nice list of songs. Got a phone call one night at the radio station from a Toronto relative of Richard's. He was an interesting man (although definitely not my favourite singer) who worked hard at not being emotionally destroyed by the blacklist.

click

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Abby Sale
Date: 01 May 01 - 06:22 PM

Thanx for the link. D-B was absolutely one of my favorite singers - high tenor or not, the man could interpret and "sell" a ballad as few others could or can. It was hearing him in the 50's that let me first see that folk song could be about something, not just some notes strung together pleasingly.

But then, I like ballads.

You do a fair good job on them yerself.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: DougR
Date: 01 May 01 - 08:14 PM

Interesting, Rick. Thanks for posting.

DougR

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Midchuck
Date: 01 May 01 - 08:19 PM

I have the vinyl of his rendition of Mark Twain's 1601. Definitely ahead of his time.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 01 May 01 - 08:44 PM

Midchuck - Yeah, 1601 is a great one. Mine got warped in storage one summer, and I can't find another. But the other side was great, too, and I can't remember what it was. Can you help??

Thanks,

Lyle

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 May 01 - 09:22 PM

I saw Dyer-Bennet do an outdoor one-man concert at the Court Theater outside Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago about 1962. It was wonderful. Yes, he sang "high" and it took some getting used to ---- but he was certainly much easier to listen to than Alfred Deller or John Jacob Niles---to my ears at least. And he taught me to invest the time to enjoy lyrical and beautiful works I had previously thought were only frilly and way too precious. In Richard's hands they were simply worth listening to --- and I'm glad (like bullfighting and Scotch) that I took the time to be at least educated in a few of their merits.

Rick, thanks for the link.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 May 01 - 08:51 AM

Dyer-Bennet's widow Malvene has made arrangements with the Smithsonian to re-release his albums as CD's; the first of these was released last year and more may be available now. His daughters, Brooke and Bonnie, provided some very interesting biographical information. Sorry, I can't provide a link at this time.

He was an amazing performer who would never fail to capture his audience, and kindle their interest in obscure things like musty old ballads. A dangerous man.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 May 01 - 08:54 AM

Hey, I should have clicked the link above BEFORE shooting my mouth off; it's all there.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 May 01 - 07:19 PM

There are currently two RDB CDs in print; one of songs for kids. It's a same: he was one of those singers who sounded much better in person than on record. I vividly remember him singing a pianissimo passage at a Town Hall Concert in NY--I was in the balcony, and every word was clear as a bell.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 May 01 - 09:00 PM

I doubt that "1601" is on the current set of CD's. Dyer-Bennet really enjoyed bawdy party songs with his friends and relatives in Maine and Long Island but we were all shocked when he finally recorded some of them, on the flip side of Mark Twain's "1601." He was probably rebelling at the time against some of his critics who suggested he was cleaning up traditional songs.

Then, he used to go to some of the rent parties at Almanac House and swap songs with Guthrie, Seeger and Leadbelly. Must have been a blast.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Bill D
Date: 02 May 01 - 09:12 PM

back when I barely knew what 'folk' was and had about 5 albums to my name, he was a shining star of musicianship and a wonderful source of material. I know he was a bit 'formal', but he certainly help ME get into learning about those old songs!

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: fox4zero
Date: 02 May 01 - 09:13 PM

My wife and I were thrilled to see Dyer-Bennet at NYC's Carnegie Hall (I think)in the mid 1950's. He was so elegant in his white tie and tails and he sang so clearly; he could make the hair on the back of your neck bristle when he sang "The Rising of the Moon". My singing of his "Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee" got me through 2 days painful post-op forced march in a Toronto hospital.

No one could produce a lump in your throat like RDB. I still play my worn Remington and Folkways recordings. Love him.

Larry Parish

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: fox4zero
Date: 03 May 01 - 09:24 AM

Rick I omitted thanking you for posting the link. THANKS Larry Parish

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 May 01 - 10:54 AM

Hey, glad you like it. Posting this and thiswere just my way of trying to counter-act some of the silly ethnic slur threads.

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 01 - 02:50 PM

Thanks for posting the link, Rick.

I know that Richard Dyer-Bennet was not everybody's cup of tea, but he was a major influence in my early interest in folk music. Being a weird kid, I was something of an opera enthusiast when I was a teen-ager. The big push that got me actually participating was the first time I heard Walt Robertson. But when I started listening to recordings of traditional singers, frankly some of them put me off. Later, as I learned more, I came to fully appreciate them. But--had it not been for Richard Dyer-Bennet. . . .

Many folk music enthusiasts feel that formal musical training--whether you sound like it or not--is incompatible with folk singing. To some, Dyer-Bennet singing folk songs in that high, clear, obviously cultivated light tenor verges on sacrilege. But Dyer-Bennet himself maintained that, in fact, he was not a folk singer. He was a minstrel. He belonged to a tradition that went back to medieval times.

I liked the "minstrel" idea. Early on, I decided to model myself after Richard Dyer-Bennet by using an approach similar to his. I continued taking singing lessons, took classic guitar lessons, and eventually went to the U. of W. and Cornish School to study music and English Lit. But I decided to apply his approach much more broadly. I didn't adhere to strict classical technique--I didn't try to sound classical (being a bass-baritone, no way could I sound like Richard Dyer-Bennet)--nor did I follow the practice of some folk singers and try to imitate ethnic vocal styles. Both of these approaches place too many limitations. I simply tried to sing the best I could. And I didn't limit myself to classic guitar technique. I picked up a lot of folk guitar techniques and I try to use whatever technique or combination of techniques I feel is appropriate to each particular song.

I was lucky enough to have heard Richard Dyer-Bennet in person on several occasions, and in 1957 I had a chance to meet and talk with him. He was genuinely pleased that I was actually interested, not in slavishly imitating him, but inemulating his approach. He was generous with his time, gracious, and very encouraging.

He was a unique artist, and I admire him greatly. In the same way that Sven Scholander inspired him, he has inspired many others. It would be nice to think that Sven Scholander and Richard Dyer-Bennet live on.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 01 - 05:22 PM

Richard Dyer-Bennet was also capable of writing protest songs, as he did during WW II, with his song "Passive Resistance" describing such acts in occupied Norway. He was also a great voice teacher, spending many years working with students at Stonybrook, Long Island. I'm sure his family would be pleased that some still remember and respect him for what he set out to accomplish, a modern day troubadour.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 May 01 - 05:33 PM

Something just occurred to me. After being blacklisted out of his concert career, partly because of Burl Ives' testimony, teaching privately would have been one of the few "musical" things he could have done to make a living. Probably several hundred aspiring singers were fortunate in having a teacher who had "been there and done it".

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 03 May 01 - 05:38 PM

I have always been curious about RDB and John Jacob Niles, but never knew much about them other than through the songs I had heard on the Midnight Special and elsewhere. Thanks much for the link, Rick.

I guess I'll go looking for a similar source of info on John Jacob Niles now. Unless someone already has one. . .

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 03 May 01 - 05:45 PM

Found Mr. Niles (if my link works)

click here

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 03 May 01 - 05:52 PM

Found Mr. Niles (if my link works)

click here

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 01 - 07:19 PM

Richard Dyer-Bennet was also a master storyteller. Fortunately, several of his Georgian folk tales such as "The Man Who Was Full of Fun" and "The King of the Noise" are preserved on one of his recordings (see link at beginning of this thread). As a child, it was the stories and the nonsense songs that we all loved to hear.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 May 01 - 08:48 PM

You have no idea how glad it makes me to see some mudcatters interested in this.

Thanks for the John Jacob Niles Bartholemew. I suspect he would have been a fascinating character to know. (maybe not to live next door to though!)

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 04 May 01 - 03:29 AM

I like his distinction between folk singer and minstrel. A folk singer is a country person who learned songs from family and community, a minstrel is a city person wholearned them from books, records, concerts etc.
RtS (A wand'ring minstrel I...)

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 May 01 - 09:55 AM

I've always found that "folksinger/minstrel" monicker, interesting. Have read many definitions of each, and there are certainly widely divergent opinions. Throw "troubadour" and "balladeer" into the mix, and you realize the terms mean specific things to a very few people. To most, they're pretty much all the same.

I was talking to a friend about this a few years ago, and asked "so what do you call a folksinger who'll take requests"? He fixed me with a stare and said "A jukebox"! Got a big laugh from that one.

There was another singer sort of in the Dyer-Bennet mold that I had an album of, named John Runge. Anyone familiar with him?

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 01 - 03:37 PM

Yes, Rick, I have a record of John Runge, quite probably the same one you had: English Folk Songs on Riverside. I got it sometime in the late Fifties. My wife and I move awhile back, and our vinyl record turntable is under a pile of debris waiting to be exhumed. As I recall, he was pretty good, but -- in my opinion, at least -- he was not quite as clean, precise, and -- well -- interesting as Richard Dyer-Bennet, if that makes any kind of sense. Born in England, studied music there and in Florence, Italy; sang some on the BBC, then moved to the U.S. -- New Hampshire. Did concerts and such and taught singing, but his day-job was schoolmaster-physicist.

One singer I've wondered about is William Clauson. He was a student at Dyer-Bennet's "School of Modern Minstrelsy" in Aspen, Colorado in the late Forties. Clauson played classic guitar quite well and sang very well. Tenor, but unlike Dyer-Bennet (classified as a light tenor, "white" tenor, or "tenorino" -- not a counter-tenor), Clauson's voice was big, almost operatic. He did a concert tour or two, made a couple of records (one Capitol, one RCA), then moved to Sweden. An Internet search for "William Clauson AND folk" comes up with some curious stuff. References to his two earlier records; two CDs, Scandinavia and Mariachi Sounds (which sounds like it can't be the same guy, but sound-clips indicate that it is), and a reference to La Bamba, words and music by William Clauson, sung by Ritchie Valens. That throws me. Anybody know anything about William Clauson and if all of these William Clausons are the same guy?

I understand that Glenn Yarbrough was also one of Dyer-Bennet's students.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 04 May 01 - 05:09 PM

I remember William Clauson. Many, I mean MANY, years ago I had an album by him entitled 'The Viking Of Song'. He sounded to me like a Dyer-Bennet/Burl Ives cross, but without the ability to put a song across possessed by those men. Some years ago I sold a lot of records in order to clear some shelf space. These included a number of 'pioneer' folk and folkish performers, the likes of J.J.Niles,Paul Clayton, Merrick Jarret, Cousin Emmy, MacEwan Brothers, Isla Cameron, Heath & Payant, Jimmie Driftwood, and others. I wish I still had them. Moral, unless in dire straits DON'T sell your albums. BTW if anybody has any of these.............Burl.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 04 May 01 - 05:18 PM

I forgot to say that Clauson's was among the records I sold. It was a long time ago so I can't be certain if 'The Viking of Song' was the actual album title or a secondary stage or publicity name, like 'The Singing Brakeman'. Rick, I remember John Runge too. AQin't nostalgia great?

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 01 - 06:14 PM

Bingo! Got it in one, burl. ". . . the ability to put a song across . . ." That's what I was groping around for when I said I didn't think John Runge was as "interesting" as Richard Dyer-Bennet.

I only heard William Clauson once, in the late Fifties, while auditioning records in a record store (back before the days of shrink-wrap, when record stores had listening booths). I was impressed by the big voice, and the liner notes saying that he had been a student of Dyer-Bennet's. I figured that was promising, but I didn't buy the record.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 May 01 - 06:39 PM

Hey Burl! Merrick Jarrett is one of my best buddies! Talked to him via e-mail about three weeks ago. One of the nicest human beings I've ever met. Did you guys ever know each other?

I was playing in a bar out west about twenty five years ago (sound like a Kenny Rogers song?) NOT enjoying myself and one night in walks Merrick (to me a folksinging legend) in the flesh. Damn, I enjoyed talking to him.

Rick

P.S. We just hosted Harvey Andrews and his lady Wendy for a few days. He had some great stories about the early Brit recording days....your name came up a few times...fondly!

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 05 May 01 - 10:40 AM

There is a very good article on Richard Dyer-Bennet, with some great pictures, Fall 1998 Sing Out!, Vol43 No.2. The pics include one of him being interviewed by Studs Terkel. Boy, would I love to hear that. Anybody got a tape? It also shows RDB and Leadbelly singing together and BOY would I LOVE to hear that. The combination of those two voices..wow... Rick, I had presumed Merrick Jarrett was dead it's such a long time since the album. I never met him, although I would like to. Next time you meet him tell him he has a fan out here.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 May 01 - 11:31 AM

I've e-mailed him. Maybe he'll drop in to say hello.

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 May 01 - 06:34 PM

Refesh!

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 May 01 - 12:54 PM

I'm not sure how the rest feel, but Dyer-Bennet (like J.J. Niles) was one of those performers that I LEARNED to appreciate over the years. At first I was quite turned off by his precision and diction (especially with songs like John Henry) but after a few years I started seeing what he did as separate from the more rough hewn style that first turned me on. On his own terms he was superb, and I learned to value that.

Rick

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 May 01 - 02:55 PM

I liked Dyer-Bennet right off, but then I was an opera bug and had taken a couple of year's voice lessons by the first time I heard him. It took me awhile to get used to the more "rough hewn" style and see that there was a whole lot going on there, too. In a way, I guess I've always been kind of bass-ackwards.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 May 01 - 04:55 PM

I think Rick and Don some up the two approaches to appreciating what Dick Dyer-Bennet was doing as a singer of traditional ballads (some of which he certainly adapted). The other group that learned to appreciate him happened to be at one of his concerts, and there was no way one could walk away from that experience with indifference. I believe his family is planning in cooperation with Smithsonian a second CD. I'm just glad that there was still a critical mass of people who cared enough to see that the first CD was released.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 May 01 - 04:57 PM

Ugh! "some" = "sum"

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 May 01 - 05:11 PM

I like Dyer-Bennet a lot, but never could appreciate JJ Niles too much...I DO have the 2 volume JJ Niles record set...as well as Paul Clayton("Paul Clayton, Folksinger"...and "Lumberjack songs & Ballads" Jimmie Driftwood, Cousin Emmy..etc..(I have one record that came in a paper jacket...with Dyer-Bennet on one side and Tom Glazer on the other...titled "Olden Ballads" (Mercury Records 20007)...also have Dyer-Bennet on Remington (RLP-199-34)..no notes..says a "Don Gabor production"...also found 4 Dyer-Bennet 10" LPs awhile back...the ones, I guess, that convinced him to start his own company in order to control the recording quality...

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 08 May 01 - 03:55 PM

Bill D, hang on to those albums. I wish I'd held on to mine. I also concur with your opinion on RDB and JJN. I grew to appreciate what RDB was about and to respect the honesty of his approach. I still occasionally pull the album off the shelf for a listen. I could do none of these things with Niles. I remember buying his albums unheard because I'd read his name as a pioneer folk person. I bought two at the same time. When I played them I could hardly believe my ears. No Sir, I did not like it, and I still don't, all these years afterwards. Many people do like him,and that's their prerogative, but not me. I have heard that Smithsonian Folkways are releasing all of RDB's recordings including the bawdy stuff. Can anybody confirm this? BTW Bill, is the Cousin Emmy the one with a backing band, perhaps named The Cousins?

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 May 01 - 03:59 PM

Folkways hasn't announced as yet when (if ever) the additional RDB recordings will be re-released. CAMSCO will have them when they're available. You can order a custom CD from Smithsonian-Folkways, but they burn them directly from the LP, with no remastering. Costs $20.

Subject: RE: Richard Dyer-Bennett info. nice.
From: Bill D
Date: 09 May 01 - 10:50 AM

burl...I have "The New Lost City Ramblers with Cousin Emmy"....blue cover with her name larger than theirs and a painting instead of a photo.( Folkways production)...I thought I had one other Cousin Emmy thing, but didn't find it on first sweep..(you KNOW how those record catacombs can get jumbled!)

My JJ Niles double album has been played twice...maybe..*grin*