I learned how to teach folk guitar classes from Barry Olivier when Bob Nelson and I were barnstorming in the Bay Area in 1959. Barry had been teaching guitar classes for several years and he generously invited Bob and me to sit in on some of his classes (groups of ten) and gave us copies of the materials he used.

If I remember correctly, I first met John Dwyer in 1960. I had just started teaching folk guitar classes at the Folklore Center in Seattle's University District. We could pack seven people, plus me, in a small room in the back of the Folklore Center without their poking each other in the ear with their tuning heads. After a ten week course, they knew the basic chords and could sing over a dozen songs. The classes became so popular that about six months later I had to move them to larger quarters at the University YM/YWCA at Eagleson Hall.

John was one of the most enthusiastic students I ever had, and when the beginning and intermediate classes where over, he contacted me for private lessons where, again, he worked like a beaver, practicing new stuff on the guitar and learning songs right and left. He soon became one of the regulars at hoots and songfest and shortly settled into being one of the mainstays of the Seattle folk music scene—actually, considering the way his little red Geo Metro zipped up and down Interstate 5, taking in songfests wherever they happened to manifest themselves in Western Washington or Southern British Columbia, he was instrumental in making various groups acquainted with each other—all to the good!

I usually start private pupils with some basic classic guitar technique (easiest, fastest way to learn "finger-style" guitar), and although I don't think John continued working on classic technique beyond the basics, his accompaniments were always tasteful and unobtrusively supported whatever song he was singing. His voice was reminiscent of Ed McCurdy's and I believe McCurdy's records were one of his favorite sources for new songs, although he combed through every songbook he could get his hands on and delved into some pretty academic works on folk music and ballads. He wanted to know about the songs he sang.

Some of my favorite Sunday afternoons and evenings were spent at John's place on Priest Point Road near Marysville some thirty or forty miles north of Seattle. John would feed the gathering of singers and friends (occasional someone would bring a pot-luck dish) and if the weather was good, we'd often spend the afternoon loafing around on John's deck overlooking Puget Sound. Frequently, people were there from Bellingham, ninety miles north of Seattle, and from Vancouver, B.C. Casual warbling might begin in the afternoons, but by early evening, we were going strong.

John didn't smoke and he didn't want people smoking in the house, so if you wanted to cauterize your lungs, you had to go out on the deck. After some thirty years of smoking like a chimney, I had recently got married to a woman of infinite resource and sagacity (and who still looks mighty good in a pair of yoga pants!) who didn't smoke, and other people smoking in her vicinity bothered her, so I was determined (koff! koff!) to quit for a number of reasons. One Sunday afternoon at John's, we were all sitting on the deck, and I noticed that I only had three cigarettes left in the pack. I made up my mind. I casually smoked the three of them, gave my Bic lighter to a woman there who smoked, and never smoked again!   

Incidentally, John was best man at Barbara's and my wedding (before the ceremony, as the pastor was outlining the sequence of events, I remember his asking the pastor, "When does she put the ring in his nose?").   

It would be hard to over-estimate John Dwyer's impact on furthering interest in folk music in the Pacific Northwest. Not only did he sing (and occasionally write) interesting songs—and sing them well—his enthusiasm for the music was highly contagious.

Thank you, John!

Don Firth

P. S. More as it occurs to me.