Barry Olivier performing in Berkeley, 1957.
Barry Olivier, musician, guitar teacher and founder and producer of the Berkeley Folk Music Festival from 1958 to 1970, passed away on September 23. He was 87 years old.
Northwestern Libraries acquired Olivier’s archive of material related to the Berkeley Folk Music Festival in 1973. Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the entire archive was digitized and is now available online to researchers around the globe.
SUNY-Brockport historian Dr. Michael Kramer wrote a brief biography of Olivier for his digital exhibit about the Berkeley festival.
“I once had the pleasure of spending the greater part of an afternoon here at the library with Barry, showing him items from the Berkeley Folk Music Festival Archive that he hadn’t seen in decades,” said Scott Krafft, curator of Special Collections in the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections and University Archives. “He was so friendly and laid back, but also so suavely precise and informative in his fascinating reminiscences. I could see the qualities that made him such a great teacher and festival organizer. At that time Michael Kramer was faculty here at Northwestern and with support from the Library he’d brought Barry to campus for a class he was teaching about the Festival. Later in the day that I spent with him, Barry gave a public talk and musical performance in our Forum Room. Such a delightful guy.”