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.
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Early life
He was born on 6 October 1913 in Leicester, England, as the eldest son of Miriam Wolcott Clapp and Richard Stewart Dyer-Bennet (1886–1983), a Major in the Leicester Regiment who was wounded twice while fighting in World War I. His paternal grandfather was Frederick Stewart Hotham Dyer-Bennet (a grandson of Sir Thomas Swinnerton Dyer, 9th Baronet). Dyer-Bennet grew up in Germany, Canada and California. He studied voice with Gertrude Wheeler Beckman and Sven Scholander.
The meeting with Scholander had a profound effect on Dyer-Bennet, who later recalled:
"He looked straight at me and spun tale after tale as though singing out of his own life. He sang of soldiers, sailors, young lovers; he sang dialogues between mother and daughter, altercations between birds and animals, descriptions of mountain and countryside. 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."