He enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944, and returned there after a period in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II.
He started graduate studies in archaeology at Berkeley, but left in 1952 and took various jobs including driving cabs and trucks, gardening work, and giving guitar lessons.
[3] The album was described by the Journal of American Folklore as "a masterpiece of straightforward western style singing.
He developed the work of the archaeology program particularly through cooperation, mutual respect, and beneficial relationships between the indigenous peoples of California and archaeologists.
He retired in 1992, and the Anthropological Collections Facility at Sonoma State University was named in his honor in 2004.