Barry Olivier (November 2, 1935 – September 23, 2023) was an American guitar teacher who was the creator and producer of the

Berkeley Folk Music Festival The Berkeley Folk Music Festival was a folk music festival held annually from 1958 to 1970 in Berkeley, California, one of the major centers of the folk music revival in the United States. It was directed by Barry Olivier. The Festival was one ...

from 1958 to 1970.

Early life

Olivier grew up living in the San Francisco Bay Area cities of Belvedere, Brentwood and

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

, moving several times as his father was a school principal. He moved to Berkeley in 1947 as a teenager. Olivier lived in Berkeley until the early 1980s, and then lived his remaining years in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

Career

Olivier was part of the Berkeley folk music scene from the 1950s onward. He was influenced by folk revivalists such as

Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American Folk music, folk singer and actor with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his o ...

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg w ...

, and

John Jacob Niles John Jacob Niles (April 28, 1892 – March 1, 1980) was an American composer, singer and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers," Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 195 ...

, who he saw perform on campus at Cal. Beginning in 1956 he hosted “The Midnight Special” on

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is a public, listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed o ...

radio. He started a music instrument shop in Berkeley, The Barrel Folk Music Center, to serve the growing folk music community during the mid-1950s. In 1958, Olivier, as a former student of

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

envisioned and created The Berkeley Folk Festival which became an annual event, directed and produced by Olivier, until 1970. Performers and workshop participants included

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music during the 20th century. He was a musician, folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activ ...

Doc Watson Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. He won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His ...

and his son Merle,

Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (, ; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing mo ...

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

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Almeda Riddle Almeda Riddle (November 21, 1898 – June 30, 1986) was an American folk singer. Born and raised in Cleburne County, Arkansas, she learned music from her father, a fiddler and a teacher of shape note singing. She collected and sang tradition ...

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Alice Stuart Alice Stuart (June 15, 1942 – July 31, 2023) was an American blues and folk music, folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. She toured the UK with Van Morrison and throughout the United States with Mississippi John Hurt. Her singing, songwriti ...

, and folklorists

Charles Seeger Charles Louis Seeger Jr. (December 14, 1886 – February 7, 1979) was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the husband of the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919– ...

and

Archie Green Archie Green (June 29, 1917 – March 22, 2009) was an American folklorist specializing in laborlore (defined as the special folklore of workers) and American folk music. Devoted to understanding vernacular culture, he gathered and commented ...

. Associate festival producer John Chambless described Olivier as having produced the festivals almost single-handedly and with "enormous good taste." He produced all of

’s Northern California concerts from 1962 to 1973. In 1974, Olivier's archive of folk festival materials was acquired by

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

(ibid). This festival was the subject of history and American studies professor Michael J. Kramer’s research seminar “Digitizing Folk Music History: The Berkeley Folk Festival.” In May 2011, he spoke at Northwestern about his experience during the 1960s. In 2021,

(ibid) published its digital archive of th
Berkeley Folk Music Festival
Olivier was a Bay Area guitar teacher. He taught a young boy from

El Cerrito, California El Cerrito (Spanish language, Spanish for "The Little Hill") is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, and forms part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It has a population of 25,962 according to the 2020 United States census, 2 ...

named

John Fogerty John Cameron Fogerty (born May 28, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty, he founded the swamp rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), for which he was th ...

his first guitar lessons, and helped

Kate Wolf Kate Wolf (born Kathryn Louise Allen; January 27, 1942 – December 10, 1986) was an American folk singer and songwriter."Kate Wolf", pp. 533–534, in ''All Music Guide'', 2nd edition (1994), edited by Michael Erlewine. San Francisco: Miller F ...

perfect her guitar playing technique. He was the father of five children. In June 2020, his students formed a public Facebook group
Friends of Barry Olivier
Barry Olivier retired from teaching in 2019, after being diagnosed with dementia. He died on the morning of September 23, 2023, at the age of 87.Barry Olivier, 1935–2023
/ref>

Media

Joan Baez concert handbill, 16 April 1967
(Barry Olivier, Producer)

References

External links

Friends of Barry Olivier
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Olivier, Barry 1935 births 2023 deaths 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century American male musicians American male guitarists Guitarists from San Francisco