Barry Olivier: Festival Director

2. Barry Olivier: Festival Director

Sam Hinton and Barry Olivier, 1964.

Barry is a genius, I think. He was a real whiz at organizing things…They were the best-planned festivals that I have ever attended. Oh, it was terrific….

— Sam Hinton

Barry Olivier directed the Berkeley Folk Music Festival for its duration, from 1958 to 1970. His thoughtful curation, care for participants from musicians to attendees, and openness to changing ideas about folk music during the 1960s were fundamental to the event. The Berkeley Folk Music Festival Archive itself was Barry Olivier’s working archive and it too bears the imprint of his approach to performance presentation and his renown for fostering festive, friendly experiences of musical community.

Growing Up With Folk in Berkeley During the 1940s and 50s

Olivier was born in 1935 in San Francisco, California, and after living in towns on the outskirts of the Bay Area, arrived in Berkeley as a teenager in 1947. Inspired by the folk and country music of the era by Burl Ives, John Jacob Niles, Merle Travis, Carl Sandburg, and others, he was already playing guitar and singing. Soon he was performing on the local Pacifica station, KPFA-FM, and started to host a late-night folk radio show, “Midnight Special,” on which locals would perform. He opened what was likely Berkeley’s first folk-oriented instrument shop, the Barrel, and began to organize live performances, first at local clubs such as Northgate, then, after studying theater at the University of California, at a series of concerts in the lecture halls and performance spaces of the institution.

In one event, amusing in retrospect, Olivier printed a poster for one of his first promoted concerts at Cal on a red background (see red-colored poster in photo below). At the time, this was expressly forbidden by the university administration due the association of the color with communism. That the poster was for a folk music concert compounded the problem, since folk had left-wing associations. The absurdities of it all made for a great story years later, but at the time the incident was no joke. The anti-communist Red Scare was in full swing during the late 1950s and the story serves as a reminder that any hint of bohemian difference at the time, or even an interest in traditional music, could prove fraught. Coming from a liberal family, Olivier was progressive-minded, but in truth he was far more interested in traditional balladry and cowboy songs than radical politics. Nonetheless, he steered clear of red posters for awhile as he continued to promote folk music at the university and in the Berkeley area.
 
In the 1950s, Olivier produced evening concerts with young local musicians such as Neil Rosenberg, who would go on to become a well-known folklorist and historian of bluegrass music, as well as Mayne Smith, Scott Hambly, Tam Gibbs, Jo Lang, Deena Zonlight, Wayne Smith. He also promoted shows by visiting musicians and speakers such as Sandy Paton, Cisco Houston, Carl Sandburg, and other luminaries. We are fortunate enough to have the audio from the Cisco Houston concert preserved in the Berkeley Archive (see below).

Folk Song Cross Section Concert Poster, 1956.

Sandy Paton, Berkeley, CA, 1957.

Cisco Houston, ca. 1958.

Folk Songs Around the World Concert Poster, 1957. The University of California administration admonished Olivier not to print posters on red-tinted backgrounds due to the color’s association with communism. It is a reminder of the 1950s Cold War context, in which a concert featuring folk music from around the world might be understood by some as a front for communist recruitment.

Carl Sandburg, 1961, University of California, Berkeley. Photo possibly by Barry Olivier.

Paul Hansen performing at KPFA, 1957.

Dave Fredrickson, Harland Kinsey, Gail Leonard, and Bob Brill at a folk song jam session at KPFA radio, 5 May 1956.

Billy Faier performing at Northgate Folk song jam, 1957.

Neil Rosenberg performing at Northgate folk song jam session, 1957.

Miriam Stafford singing and playing banjo, 1957.

Mayne Smith playing the banjo at the KPFA studios, 1957. Seated next to him, Rita Weill [Byxbe) holds guitar.

Barbara Dane performing at Northgate folk song jam session, 1957.

KPFA/Folk Singers Present A Folk Song Concert Series at the Live Oak Little Theater, Berkeley, CA, ca. 1957.

 

 

Advertisement for the Barrel, Berkeley’s Folk Music Center, Barry Olivier, Proprietor, from Activities Magazine, February 1959.

Four Approaches to Folk Song: Concert series featuring Sandy Paton, Margarita and Clark Allen, Sam Hinton, and the Gateway Singers, September—November, 1957

Traditional Song in America: Concert series featuring Jean Ritchie, Cisco Houston, and Sandy Paton, October 1958

A Selection of Posters for Barry Olivier's 1950s Folk Concerts

Jean Ritchie Flier, ca. late 1950s.

Poster for Sandy Paton in concert on Friday, 27 September 1957 at Wheeler Auditorium, University of California, Berkeley.

Poster for Margarita & Clark Allen concert on Friday, 11 October 1957 in Wheeler Auditorium at the University of California, Berkeley. Poster by James W. Strother.

Poster for Sam Hinton in concert at the Wheeler Auditorium on Friday, 25 October 1957. Poster by James W. Strother.

Cisco Houston, Live at the University of California, Berkeley, 18 October 1958

Listen to Cisco Houston, Live at the University of California, Berkeley, 18 October 1958

Three clippings about Cisco Houston performing at Wheeler Auditorium at the University of California, Berkeley, October 1958.

A Life in Folk Music

In addition to conceptualizing the Berkeley Folk Music Festival and directing it for its entirety, from 1958 to 1970, Barry Olivier also continued to promote other folk-related concerts, in particular serving as one of the main promoters of Joan Baez’s Bay Area appearances. To make a living, he taught guitar and would continue to do so until 2019, when he retired. Beloved by his students, Olivier taught a generation of East Bay musicians how to play.

Barry Olivier playing guitar for a group of children at a folk concert in El Cerrito, California, 1965.

Helen and Barry Olivier, ca. 1957.

Helen and Barry Olivier performing together at KPFA studios, ca. 1956.

Barry Olivier playing guitar at a folk song jam session, 1957.

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With his gregarious, booming laugh and a twinkle in his eye, Barry has been a stalwart of the Bay Area folk music scene for over seventy years. When he heard about the idea of digitizing the Berkeley Folk Music Festival Archive at Northwestern University Libraries to serve as a platform for a “digital river of song,” a kind of continuation online of the work he started in person on the Cal campus, Barry enthusiastically endorsed the idea. Whether noting what each performer liked to take in their coffee, as he was wont to do, or creating extensive lists of what to do better at the next year’s Festival, or joining in to sing and perform himself, Barry Olivier remains an important, if until now unheralded contributor to both the folk music revival and Bay Area music history.

Helen and Barry Olivier performing at KPFA studios, 1957.

James W. Strother poster design for “Barry and Helen Olivier: Folk Songs Around the World,” ca. 1958.

Barry Olivier, Folk Songs of the World. Poster design by James W Strother, ca. 1958.

Barry Olivier at the 1962 Winter Berkeley Folk Music Festival. Photo: Roland Jacopetti.

Barry Olivier in action at the Berkeley Folk Music Festival, mid 1960s.

John Chambless, Berkeley Folk Music Festival staff member, and Barry Olivier, 1969. Copy of photo by Earl Crabb.

Joan Baez and Barry Olivier in conversation backstage at the Hearst Greek Amphitheater during the 1964 Berkeley Folk Music Festival Jubilee Concert.

Barry Olivier speaking to the audience in the University of California’s Faculty Glade at the 1964 Berkeley Folk Music Festival.

Sam Hinton, Barry Olivier, and Bessie Jones at the 1962 Winter Folk Music Festival.

Barry Olivier, holding banjo, shakes hands with J.E. Mainer at the 1963 Berkeley Folk Music Festival.

Tony Kraber, Barry Olivier, and Leslie Hinton at the Berkeley Folk Music Festival, 1963.

Almeda Riddle and Barry Olivier at the UCLA Folk Music Festival in Los Angeles California, March 1964.

1966 Berkeley Folk Music Festival Button.

Hand-drawn diagram created by Barry Olivier for setup of fire pit concerts in Eucalyptus Grove on the University of California, Berkeley campus.

Barry Olivier jotted down notes, ideas, funny stories, missives, and more on his trademark pink “From the Desk of” memos and other scraps of paper. Here is a comment from graphic artist Wilfried Sätty to him in 1969 about the ill-fated Wild West Festival, a Woodstock-like rock concert and free arts fair in Golden Gate Park that Olivier directed. Protests from within the late-1960s counterculture itself caused Olivier to cancel the event at the last moment.

Barry Olivier had a deep appreciation for graphic design and typography, and developed a wide range of graphic styles for Berkeley Folk Music Festival programs, brochures, and even signs used at the event.

Barry Olivier at the University of California. Photo: Roland Jacopetti.

Sam Hinton’s certificate presented to Barry Olivier, 1965.

Certificate recognizing Barry Olivier, signed by Sam Hinton, 1972.

Barry Olivier at the 1970 and final Berkeley Folk Music Festival.

Barry Olivier Visits Northwestern University, 2011

In May 2011, Barry Olivier and his wife Alice visited Northwestern University to share his memories of the festival with students in Dr. Michael J. Kramer’s Digitizing Folk Music History seminar. He also participated in a public conversation at Northwestern University Libraries.

Barry Olivier shows poster of Folk Songs Around the World 1957 during public event with Berkeley Folk Music Festival Project Director Michael J. Kramer at Northwestern University in 2011. Photo: Sally Mann.

Barry Olivier shows enlarged poster of himself with Pete Seeger at the 1959 Berkeley Folk Music Festival when visiting Northwestern University in 2011. Photo Sally Mann.

Barry Olivier talks with Paul Breslin, Professor of Caribbean Literature, during visit to Northwestern University in 2011. Photo: Sally Mann.

Barry Olivier laughing during interview with Berkeley Folk Music Festival Project Director Michael J Kramer. Olivier visited Northwestern University in 2011. Photo Sally Mann.

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