Cyrus Faryar
Biography
Jac Holzman of Elektra Records once called Cyrus Faryar "the Persian minstrel of Barham Boulevard" -- that is high praise, indeed, for a man whose signings include Arthur Lee, Jim Morrison, Tim Buckley, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Ed McCurdy, and Fred Neil, to name just a few, What's even more astonishing is how little-known Faryar remains, despite being a downright ubiquitous figure in 1960s music -- he turns up in association with everyone from Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio to the Firesign Theatre, and a lot of wonderfully strange music in between. Born in Hawaii, he was raised in Honolulu, where he was a classmate of Dave Guard, the future co-founder of the Kingston Trio, though the two had parted company in their teen years. Faryar, an American of Persian descent, had done some work in drama and some singing, and even owned a tavern in Honolulu for a time, but it was his friendship with Guard that brought him headlong into a recording career. Guard had quit the Kingston Trio at the start of 1961 and was assembling a new group, ultimately called the Whiskeyhill Singers, and Faryar was his first recruit, getting his old friend out from Hawaii to San Diego, California. It was Faryar who steered Guard to a singer he'd seen named Judy Henske.
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC.