Richard Dyer-Bennet (6 October 1913 in Leicester, England – 14 December 1991 in Monterey, Massachusetts) was an English-born American folk singer (or his own preferred term, "minstrel"), recording artist, and voice teacher.

[1] His paternal grandfather was Frederick Stewart Hotham Dyer-Bennet (a grandson of Sir Thomas Swinnerton Dyer, 9th Baronet).

A pageant of the ages seemed to pass before my eyes, and it was all evoked by the husky voice of this old man and by his simple but exactly appropriate accompaniments on the lute."

His first album released included the song, The Lonesome Valley, used for many years to sign off the Midnight Special on WFMT each Saturday night.

A biography – Richard Dyer-Bennet: The Last Minstrel – by Paul O Jenkins was published in December 2009 by the University Press of Mississippi.