[3] He was an athlete in high school, winning several letters and medals for his abilities as a long jumper, quarter-miler, and a member of the mile-relay team.
He said that he used to hang out at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center, where he met Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Harry Belafonte, and others.
At the Gaslight Cafe, he saw and was influenced by such blues musicians as Son House, Skip James, and Mississippi John Hurt, and he also took guitar lessons from Rev.
In 1973, he was the editor of a college literary magazine, through which he made contact with poets Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski, and with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
[7] In 1980, Conforth began attending graduate school at Indiana University Bloomington, where he majored in folklore, ethnomusicology, and American Studies.
Conforth wrote his 1984 Master's thesis on the collection: "Laughing Just to Keep from Crying: Afro-American Folksong and the Field Recordings of Lawrence Gellert".
In humans, Dr. Harrah-Conforth concludes, 'these two states may be interpreted as hyper- and hypo- arousal, or ecstasy and samadhi.In May 1991, he was named the founding curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
Among the artists he worked with were The Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, U2, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, B.
King, The Everly Brothers, The Kinks, Jeff Beck, Tom Petty, The Yardbirds, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Eric Burdon, Dire Straits, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, The Doors, James Brown, Carl Perkins, and The Eagles, some of whom he had known during his own days as a performer.
[not specific enough to verify] The early years of the Rock Hall saw some tensions develop friction between the two boards of directors: one in Cleveland made of local businessmen, and one in New York City (the location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation) populated by industry executives such as Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records and Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine.
In 2000, Conforth was appointed Director of the Jewel Heart Center for Tibetan Buddhism and Culture in Ann Arbor, Michigan, founded by the Buddhist teacher, Gelek Rinpoche.
[18] Conforth taught folklore, blues music, popular culture, and the history of social movements at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor until 2017.