Bruce Olson. RIP, Oct 31, 2003

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: jeffp
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:10 AM

A tremendous loss. Rest in peace, Bruce, and thank you for all you've done.

Jeff

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: MMario
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:02 AM

Devastating news. Bruce's posts were always worth reading - and worth searching for among the archives!

I'm sure he will be missed as greatly on ALL the lists forums where he contributed - not to mention the FSGW.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 07:42 AM

I much regret this. It is welcome news that his work is to be preserved. I hope his library and papers will be lodged where it can benefit the community to which he gave so much.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 06:44 AM

Very sorry to read this this. Bruce was a true scholar and a fine gentleman.

Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 05:15 AM

Sad to hear the news. A great, conscientious and thorough ballad scholar.

Regards

p.s ... never knew he was, like me, a physical chemist by training.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 05:02 AM

I remember his contibitions to this forum as always scholarly and remarkably thorough, and underpinned by an enormous passion for his subject. I hope that his work will be properly preserved and made readily available, so that his generosity in sharing knowledge may continue long after his passing.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 04:17 AM

This is sad news indeed. I learned much from his postings on the Mudcat. Although we never met I held him in high esteem. Sincere condolences to his family. Roy Harris

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: nutty
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 03:30 AM

So sad a loss to folk music ........ I have lost count of the number of people I have pointed to his site, particularly when folk on the Internet was being bad-mouthed.

He so generously shared his knowledge, I hope that there is an organisation in the States that can honour this.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Barry T
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 02:12 AM

I agree wholeheartedly, Alice. Whenever I recommended the Mudcat to prospective new members, I always promoted the knowledge and generosity that they would find here. Without fail, I would mention Bruce as one of those treasured sources.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Alice
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 12:24 AM

This is a great shock to me. Bruce Olson's knowledge was one of a number of reasons I kept coming back to Mudcat in the first few years. He was truly generous with his knowledge and time. His passing is a loss to traditional music.

Alice

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 12:24 AM

I always enjoyed this one of his postings: I went to a one room school, but it was a parochial school, and all we got besides the 3 R's were hymns and sermons. The 3 R's were interesting, but the rest I've tried to forget, and have succeeded reasonably well.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: georgeward
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 12:06 AM

There are many kinds of performance, and scholarship is one kind. I found some of Bruce's posts as inspiring as any stage performance. -George

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 11:25 PM

I really enjoyed Bruce. He was a real gentleman, and he was very generous with his knowledge if you took the time to talk with him. He was very quiet, almost distant - until you asked him a question. Whenever I needed to find out something about a really old song, I knew I could count on him for a thorough answer.
I really got a kick out of it a few years ago, before I got my scanner, when he would dare me to type up long ballads I had found. He'd repay me by posting a really interesting song he knew I'd never seen. I've always liked folk music, but it's only in that last ten years I've learned a lot about it. Bruce enjoyed tempting my intellectual curiosity, and I enjoyed having him as one of my mentors.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Padre
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 11:12 PM

I will miss Bruce's tremendous scholarship in folk music. He passed on a great deal of information on obscure sea songs to the Boarding Party over the years. Thanks. Bruce.

Padre

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 11:03 PM

He will be greatly missed. He was always willing to answer a query.
I hope that his exceptional website will live after him.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 10:11 PM

I know I ruffled his feathers, as he did mine, but I always had a great respect for his knowledge and sharing and am saddened to hear that he has passed.

Dick, please give his family our condolences and let them know he was appreciated here whether he thought so or not.

RIP,

kat

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: paddymac
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:44 PM

He was, and shall be remembered, as a mudcat treasure.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:17 PM

I only hope what he accomplished will not be lost to the world. I am saddened by his passing, even though I never met him -- he stood out, to my mind, as a unique force.

Go with style, man. Ya done good work.

A

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:15 PM

His knowledge of folksong was staggering, his database mind-boggling and his generosity exceptional. It was good to see that he posted occasionally to the forum over the last few months. Vale.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:12 PM

What a loss! I didn't know him, but it feels like I did, and I was glad to see him reappear on the Mudcat after he'd left so publicly. I could never aspire to his devotion to scholarship and breadth of knowledge in his chosen field, and that's what I'll miss him for.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:07 PM

Even tho I was one of the ones who's feathers he ruffled, his website is fantastic. He will be missed...... RIP, Bruce.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 09:00 PM

I looked for him at the Getaway and was surprised he hadn't appeared. Didn't know he was ill. I was one of many who received voluminous amounts of information in response to some simple questions. Bruce was generous. My library contains more than a few BruceO recommendations. I wish I could have known him better.

Subject: RE: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:53 PM

He ruffled a few feathers here on Mudcat, but his contributions were always well worth reading.

R.I.P

Subject: Bruce Olson. RIP
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:45 PM

William Bruce Olson, retired physical chemist and longtime song and ballad scholar, died Friday afternoon, October 31, at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was 73.
    The cause of death was listed as severe pancreatitis, Olson's son, Kenneth, said. His father, however, also suffered from kidney failure and severe emphysema.
    Olson -- who preferred to be known by his middle name -- entered the hospital to treat breathing problems with a continuous oxygen supply. Fatalistic, and complaining too of severe pains in his lower back, he told a friend he was not sure he would survive.
    Olson spent his professional career at the National Bureau of Standards -- now the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Hired as a physical chemist -- in that subject he earned his doctorate -- Olson became expert in both infra-red and molecular spectroscopy as tools for testing materiels.
    Caught up in the folk song revival of the 1950s, Olson became interested not in performing but in researching the songs others were singing. Over time, he delved into the history of particular songs, and through that began to catalogue the all but untouched body of 16th, 17th and 18th Century song and music collections. A hobby first became a passion and then a consuming avocation, he explained to a friend.
    Olson came to take special pleasure in the access he earned to libraries devoted to what he deemed as serious scholarship, particularly the Folger Library in Washington. That library holds a large song collection which Olson knew better than the staff.
    At the same time, because of his lack of formal training and credentials, he was never certain of his acceptance by academic folklorists.
    Even so, it was as a so-called private scholar, that is, a serious student of both musical and textual relationships of stage, popular and folk musics of the pre-Victorian British Isles that Olson earned an international reputation among students of folk song. (Indeed among this last requests even as he lay in his hospital bed were for the personal telephone numbers of two scholars in Great Britain, Steve Roud and Jack Campion, and instructions how to dial them directly. He also asked for the number of American Norm Cohen, like Olson a retired chemist who conducts research into folk song. Olson intended to say goodbye personally to them, he told a friend.)
    Like all true scholars, Olson was generous with his research. A stranger's query on any of a half-dozen listserves to which Olson subscribed would produce a lengthy reply culled from his large database -- and an addenda correcting errors in his first, hastily pasted message.
    "That was just like him," his son Kenneth said. "All his life he couldn't just answer yes or no. He always had to give a full answer, an explanation."
    It was that which drove his ballad research as well.
    Olson is survived by his wife, Barbara T. Olson; three sons, Douglas of Laurel, Maryland, Bryan of San Jose, California, and Kenneth of Gaithersburg, Maryland; and two sisters, Beryl of Bremerton, Washington; and Carol Kimsay, a resident of California.
    Olson's voluminous research -- updated a final time just days before he entered the hospital -- is posted at [e-mail]. Arrangements will be made, Kenneth Olson said, to permanently archive his website.

---

Bruce Olson's Website is available at the following locations:
• California State University, Fresno (Folklore Department)
• The Mudcat Cafe
-Joe Offer-