Richard Dyer-Bennet: Modern Troubadour Covers Wide Range

It's been fifty years since musician Richard Dyer-Bennet visited the College of Saint Teresa campus in Winona, Minnesota, which is where Bellairs taught during 1964-65 school year.  Bellairs first encountered Dyer-Bennet when the singer visited the University of Notre Dame campus during the 1957-58 school year.

Alfred Myers told us Bellairs met Dyer-Bennet and escorted him around one of the campuses where he later taught - seemingly in Winona.  "The Vicar of Bray" was one of Bellairs’s favorite songs.  It's about a clergyman who survives the several waves of English religious wars by shifting his allegiances in order to keep his job [1]. 

Modern Troubadour Covers Wide Range

By George McCormick
Winona Daily News, Thursday, Jan. 21, 1965

Richard Dyer-Bennet is billed as a 20th century troubadour, and, in his recital at the College of Saint Teresa Wednesday [Jan. 20] night, he proved himself to be precisely that. His first concern was with telling the stories in the songs. He subjugated everything to this end, and his pleasant tenor voice took on characteristics ranging from wryness to tenderness to suit the varying moods of what he sang.

He played guitar skilfully enough in his two instrumental solos, but his playing was unobtrusive when he was accompanying himself. 

Perhaps it would be best to say that Dyer-Bennet is a singer who happens to devote much of his programs to folk songs. To call him a folk singer is a bit misleading in these days when the term connotes a penny-bright college dropout singing one of last week's crop of genuine folk songs.

Actually, his program Wednesday night went beyond folk songs. He included melodies from the 13th century, many Elizabethan songs, European songs of the medieval and Renaissance periods and far beyond. Irish ballads and English folk songs transplanted to America.

He even sang a Negro dance tune he had learned from Huddie Ledbetter - the late Leadbelly. Afterward, he pointed out that if anyone thought it incongruous to hear him singing one of Leadbelly's songs, "You should have heard Lead singing one of my Irish songs."

Dyer-Bennet introduced most of his selections in a scholarly, hut never pedantic, way. He had warned at the beginning of the program that if occasionally he said nothing, it was because he knew nothing about the song he was to sing. There were few such occasions, however. The entire program was delightful, although this reviewer's preferences were for the Elizabethan songs and those from about the same period and for Segovia's transcription of an ancient Italian composition for lute. !

Perhaps the best indication of how enjoyable the program was is that when it was over, one had difficulty in realizing that almost two hours had gone by. 

Dyer-Bennet will conduct a seminar for Saint Teresa students at 4:15 p.m. today.

References

• [1] Correspondence with Alfred Myers.