![]() Rinzler came to the Smithsonian in 1967 as co-founder of the Festival of American Folklife (now the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) with James Morris in what was then the Smithsonian's Department of Performing Arts. In 1964, Rinzler accepted the position of Director of Field Programs at the Newport Folk Foundation, which involved the planning and programming of the Newport Folk Festival. During the 1960s, he also studied, recorded, and worked with performers of traditional music, such as Doc Watson and Bill Monroe, both of whom gained international recognition in part through his efforts. Upon his return to the United States, he played mandolin for four years with the Greenbriar Boys, at times touring with singer Joan Baez. in 1956, and did graduate work at Middlebury College and the Sorbonne in French literature and language. He became actively involved in Folk Revival while attending Swarthmore College, organizing an annual festival on campus. He was given a collection of ethnographic recordings from the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress by his uncle, Harvard University ballad scholar George Lyman Kittredge, and they soon became his favorites. Ralph Rinzler (1934-1994) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and was interested in music at an early age.
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