Oscar Brand on Richard Dyer-Bennet
Richard Dyer-Bennet was an anomaly. He was neither a folksinger, a balladeer, a pop singer, or an art singer. And even though he called himself "The Twentieth Century Minstrel," he wasn't of our century. He belonged to another time and another country. For years he was one of the most successful members of the musical fraternity—until one of his closest friends, who was almost as successful as he was, betrayed him to the blacklist.
Dyer-Bennet was born in Leicester, England, In 1913 to a British father and a Canadian mother. He rarely boasted of his background or his art, but I recall his telling me proudly that his father had been a general. This entitled him to upper class membership in the Commonwealth, but he chose to be an American citizen, which was one of the greatest compliments ever paid to this country.
He majored in English and Music at the University of California at Berkeley, and almost immediately decided that his life's major would be English music. It was a great loss to the world of tennis since his game would have undoubtedly made him a world champion. Almost until the day he died, Richard was a pleasure on the court.
I call him "Richard" because I never had the courage to call him "Dick" or "Dickie" or "Richie". His dedication to perfection was so consuming that it usually made me feel common. He was never content with his own performance, but worked on every song and every accompaniment until the result was absolutely brilliant. Then he would work some more. Once, when I was running one of his concerts, a benefit for Peoples Songs, I sat for six hours while he rehearsed "John Henry," which he'd already performed in thousands of concerts.
At first I was unenthusiastic about his "John Henry" and other American folksongs. Having worked for years with rough-hewn singers like Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, I felt there was a prissy quality about his renditions. He seemed to return the compliment, disdaining the suggestion that there was such a thing as "folk guitar-playing" or "simple singing." But in later years, he accepted the emanations of "the natural singer," just as I realized that his art was an uncommon gift.
He studied voice production with Gertrude Wheeler Beckman, developing a range that included the highest male timbre—the rarified heights of the counter-tenor. His pitch was perfect, and when he sang an "A" note, it was never less or more than 440 vibrations per second. It was unnerving to those of us who often bracketed a note like amateur artillerymen. He sang many American folksongs, but unlike Burl Ives, who was also a trained singer, Dyer-Bennet made no effort to accomodate to a "folk style."
Then he discovered that the great Sven Scholander was still alive in Sweden, singing medieval songs while accompanying himself on the lute. Dyer-Bennet convinced Scholander that he could carry on the tradition of the trouvere, and was accepted as a pupil. When he returned to America, he was a complete troubadour, a paradigm of the professional singers who traveled from castle to palace and delighted the lords and ladies of the court.
College and university audiences were delighted with his concerts. His recordings were among the first ever pressed, along with those of Andrew Rowan Summers, (a classically trained Virginia-born lawyer), and John Jacob Niles, (a Kentucky-born composer of symphonies and art songs). The great impressario. Sol Hurok, Included him in a distinguished roster of artists. Richard Dyer-Bennet became one of our highest-paid, most sought-after singers.
In Greek drama, the heroes of classic tragedy were superior men with one fatal flaw. The flaw in this tragic ointment was not Dyer-Bennet's. It was the fault of his adopted country. Dyer-Bennet was a caring man who believed in civil rights including those of blacks, of working men and women. He performed, without pay, at hundreds of progressive, left-wing, even Communist Party functions.
The fatal flaw in his fall from favor was our country's unreasonable fear of the left-wing. That fear was exacerbated by the discovery that the Soviets had developed an atom bomb. It caused the death of the Rosenbergs, the conviction of Alger Hiss, the loyalty oath, the blacklist, the destruction of the Hollywood Ten, the curtailing of American liberties, and the Inquisition known as the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
There were many of us in "Red Channels," a book which purported to expose "communist Influence In radio and television." There were more than 100 names, including those of Oscar Brand, Josh White, Burl Ives, Peter Seeger, Tom Glazer, and Richard Dyer-Bennet.
My role has already been reported in "Sing Out," in an article by Roger Deitz. Suffice to say, I was urged to appear as a "friendly" witness and refused. Pete was pilloried, but his conviction was later overturned. Josh said he'd been "used by the Party," and in turn had used the Party to help him fight for civil rights. Tom Glazer pointed out that he was a Socialist, and, therefore, a confirmed anti-Stalinist.
Burl Ives, appearing at his own request, declared that he had attended many Communist Party functions, but only because he had been accompanying his good friend, Richard Dyer-Bennet. Burl was excused, but, in a short time, right-wing protests began to cause cancellation of Dyer-Bennet concerts. Hurok was forced to drop him from the roster.
Just a footnote: Woody Guthrie came back from a trip to Los Angeles and told me, "Burl is God's angry man." I asked, "Who's he angry at?" and Woody answered, "Himself." Dyer-Bennet told me that he wasn't angry with anyone except the Committee. And with remarkable aplomb he proceeded to re-chart his life.
He set up a company to record his own LPs. He began to book himself into small venues to avoid embarrassing his sponsors. He moved to a lovely cottage on the Monterey Star Route in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He traveled to SUNY at Stony Brook on Long Island, to teach speech and voice production. And he proudly promised me that one day he would record the entire oevre of Homer.
Then, his heart failed him. He managed to survive the first attack, but the heart that had powered that remarkable troubadour couldn't take him to his 80th year. What a loss for all of us—especially for those who never knew him.