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 from 1958 to 1970.
[1][2] Olivier grew up living in the San Francisco Bay Area cities of Belvedere, Brentwood and Berkeley, moving several times as his father was a school principal.
He was influenced by folk revivalists such as Burl Ives, Carl Sandburg, and John Jacob Niles, who he saw perform on campus at Cal.
Performers and workshop participants included Alan Lomax, Doc Watson and his son Merle, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Mississippi John Hurt, Almeda Riddle, Mance Lipscomb, Alice Stuart, and folklorists Charles Seeger and Archie Green.
[citation needed] In 1974, Olivier's archive of folk festival materials was acquired by Northwestern University (ibid).