Gloria "Cosmo" Charles is a former girlfriend who traveled with Faier to the west coast in the 1970s. She retained a strong and enduring friendship with Faier as evidenced through their correspondence, which dates from the late 1970s. Additional references to Cosmo Charles in the collection can be found in Other Writings and Audio Recordings.

Gerry Faier is Billy Faier's mother.

Christopher Nicklaus Wand is Billy Faier's son with Barbara Wand. He started his correspondence with his father as a young man.

Billy Faier periodically rented out his house in Lake Hill, N.Y., when he went on extended travel for music performances and pleasure. Correspondence relating to these rental transactions is included here.

Correspondents include girlfriends, friends, fans, fellow musicians, and individuals Faier met while traveling or performing. The letters reflect not only the relationships and events of Billy Faier's life but provide something of a portrait of a generation for those who were involved in and influenced by the folk music revival and alternative lifestyles. While it is often difficult to make clear distinctions between personal, fan, and business correspondence as friends help arrange gigs, sponsors and fans become friends, fans and fellow musicians become correspondents, and fans offer business propositions, this series focuses on personal correspondence.

Songs written, composed, arranged, or transcribed by Billy Faier, as well as compositions by other composers that Faier collected. Included are complete scores of Faier's own songs, the first and second edition folios of banjo music selections from his album The Art of the Five String Banjo, and commercially published banjo music scores. Of particular note is music transcription and notation work Faier did for Pete Seeger, specifically for The Goofing-Off Suite.

In addition to composing and performing as an individual musician, Billy Faier appeared in a number of theatrical productions, often as an on-stage musician. Material relating to these productions includes newspaper reviews, photographs, scripts, correspondence, and playbills. Faier played the part of Jib in A Christmas Story, a one-act play by Monica Beebe, which appears to have been a community production, possibly in Woodstock, N.Y. Faier was an on-stage musician in the 1963 production of In White America by Martin B. Duberman, which was performed at the Sheridan Square Playhouse in New York City, and The Unsinkable Molly Brown by Meredith Willson, a Broadway show in 1960 starring Tammy Grimes.

Billy Faier's writings about music and the folk revival date from 1958 to 1968 and 1997. Much of the earlier material comes from his involvement with Caravan: Folk Music Magazine. This popular fanzine also involved Lee Shaw, Lee Haring, and Roger D. Abrahams, among others. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Faier was first a contributor and assistant editor and then editor-in-chief of the magazine. Full issues of the magazine are in the Southern Folklife Collection's serial collection. Faier also wrote for Gardyloo, Folk Music Magazine, and The Week. His writings include letters to the editor, reports and comments on the folk music scene, record reviews, a report on the 1958 December meeting of the American Folklore Society, and an article on "Style and the Phonograph Record." In 1997, Grant Alden wrote a plea for the re-discovery of Billy Faier in the letters section of No Depression. He subsequently corresponded with Faier with the result of the publication of Faier's memories of Townes Van Zant in the letters section of the magazine.

Material used to promote or document Billy Faier's career as a musician, including clippings and reviews, programs from performances and festivals, publicity photographs, posters and fliers, and event and biographical promotion pieces.

Business material focuses on the contractual and monetary aspects of Billy Faier's work as a musician. Included are business letters, particularly relating to Faier's recording and performing arrangements, 1957-1992; mail order correspondence and sales records for his self-produced tapes, Banjos, Birdsong, and Mother Earth and The Art of the Five String Banjo/Travelin' Man, 1987-2002; contracts for recordings, song publication, transfer of ownership of Caravan: Folk Music Magazine, and performances; and material relating to being hired for and performing at the 1981 Winnipeg Folk Festival.

Recordings on open reel tapes and acetate discs of Billy Faier and/or his songs recorded in concert, in the studio, or in his home, mostly as a solo performer. Includes 1990 professional remasters of earlier 1957 and 1958 Riverside Long Playing Record albums Travelin' Man and The Art of the Five String Banjo and a professional master recording of Banjos, Birdsong, and Mother Earth, as well as the commercial cassettes Billy Faier produced of these titles.

Recordings featuring musicians other than Billy Faier, as well as interviews and other current events. Faier is included on some of these recordings as interviewer or interviewee, playing in a band or for other musicians, or, notably, as a lecturer. However, he is not featured as a solo musician in any of these recordings. Of particular interest are recordings of Pete Seeger playing for Faier so that he could transcribe The Goofing Off Suite, interviews with Aunt Molly Jackson, Frank Warner and Ann Warner, and Archie Green, and several "sign of the times" recordings from the 1960s and 1970s featuring demonstrations, political candidates, and talking to a friend while she's tripping.

Billy Faier worked as a disc jockey presenting radio programs featuring folk music on several radio stations, including Berkeley's KPFA and New York City's WBAI. Open reel recordings of some of those radio shows, most notably "The Midnight Special" radio show on WBAI, are included, as well as an acetate recording of Dillybean Radio Spots.

Most of the recordings are unidentified beyond reel number and "disc dubs," but they appear to be recordings of old albums, presumably 78 rpms.

Billy Faier was not only a participant in the folk music revival, he wrote and lectured on it and collected material related to it. The material Faier collected includes clippings on the folk music scene generally and on individual musicians (most notably Barbara Dane and Frank Proffitt); song books, particularly those of a socialist and labor bent; and material relating to or generated by Ronald D. Cohen, Archie Green, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Casey Jones, individuals significant to the folk music revival as researchers, folklorists, activists, performers, and folk figures. Ronald D. Cohen's material includes a transcript from an 8 August 1992 interview with Billy Faier about his involvement in the folk music revival as well as a copy of his book, "Wasn't That a Time!": Firsthand Accounts of the Folk Music Revival . The Archie Green material consists of booklets he wrote for the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois on labor topics. The Aunt Molly Jackson material includes transcripts of interviews Billy Faier and Archie Green conducted with her on 5 May 1958 and Faier conducted with her on 19 May 1958. The Casey Jones material includes an article relating to Casey Jones' widow. Other related material received from Billy Faier but retained in the Southern Folklife Collection general periodical holdings rather than this individual collection are issues of the folk music fanzines Caravan and Gardyloo.

Manuscripts and chapbooks written by others and collected by Billy Faier. The banjo book manuscript does not list an author but, based on the handwriting, is presumed not to be by Billy Faier. "Duck Caller (and the Hemingway Hex)" is a short story written by Bob Peterson, Faier's brother-in-law. "May: The Revolutionary, for my 81 years of anarchy" is by May Picqueray and translated by Malkine Dattorre and Michael Dattorre. Poetry chapbooks include "Guide to the City" by Michael Grieg, "1001 Ways to Live Without Working" by Tuli Kupferberg, "Elegies" by Herschel Silverman, and "Nite Train" by Herschel Silverman.

Artwork collected by Billy Faier includes drawings, paintings, and photographs, which are presumed to have been created by his friends and acquaintances. Most of the works are unsigned. Signed artwork includes works by H. J. Nicholes, John G. Ernst, and Kenneth Matt Hewes. This collection includes some drawings with Faier as the subject and calligraphy of one of Faier's juggling mottos: "You Can't Learn to Juggle Without Dropping Balls."

Faier's research, recreational, and cultural interests include games such as Rubik's Cube and Go, music, hypnosis, overcoming consumerism, Silva Mind Control, the secret government, peace, and alternative lifestyles. Many of his interests are reflected in fanzines such as Gigline (for and by veterans against the Vietnam war), Rainbow Family of Living Light, Pearls Before Vinegar (a zine of clippings and articles from other sources), and The Realist. The almost complete collection of The Realist, 1959-1970, is particularly interesting for the intellectual skepticism and questioning by the counter-culture that shaped Billy Faier and others of that era.

Juggling Notes includes Faier's early juglature drawings, notes on particular juggling moves, an outline for an article, and early notes and thoughts on juggling.

Juggling research includes the clippings and other research materials that Faier collected.

Juggling business primarily consists of correspondence relating directly to publication queries and responses on Faier's manuscripts and to juggling classes that Faier taught.

Faier's juggling manuscripts include different drafts of his manuscript "Balls!," a short juggling manuscript, and several drafts of "One Ball Meditation: A Juggling Primer," including a sealed copy designed to serve as his "poor person's copyright."

Billy Faier's involvement with the general community surrounding Woodstock, N.Y., is represented through clippings, publications, and manuscripts about the community, including writings by and about Faier. Of particular interest in the clippings section are Faier's letters to the editor and copies of his articles from the local papers. The Woodstock publications include copies of assorted local newspapers from 1959 to 1992, a 1990 yearbook of the town, and a 1962 Woodstock Folk Festival program book. In the early 1980s, Faier became an outspoken critic against the building of a tower on Overlook Mountain. Writings relating to that controversy are included.

Material relating to Billy Faier's personal business affairs based in Woodstock, N.Y. "Histoire de Harassment" is Faier's title for the material relating to an accusation of harassment made against him by a local hitchhiker he picked up. Legal paper work and Faier's written notes in his defense are included. Also included are legal documents and plans relating to Faier's Lake Hill, N.Y., house and his sailing vessel, Dark Companion of Sirius, and his last will and testament, dated 20 April 1988. See also Series 1.4. Landlord-Tenant Correspondence and Series 1. Correspondence, particularly from Gloria "Cosmo" Charles for other references to the Lake Hill house and the sailing vessel.

In 1981, Billy Faier arranged a cross-country performance tour, including visits with friends along the way. Other references to this trip can be found in Series 1. Correspondence and Series 2. Music Career. His intention was to travel by bicycle and his actual misadventures and experiences in that attempt are chronicled in an article, "Crossing the USA with Bicycle" that was published in Bicycle magazine. His manuscript, correspondence with the editor, and published article are included here. Other material related to this performance tour can be found in Personal and Business Correspondence and Winnipeg Folk Festival, 1981.

Faier engaged in hitchhiking both as hitcher and as driver. See Series 1. Correspondence for letters from hitchhikers he picked up. During the energy crisis of the early 1980s, Faier passionately promoted hitchhiking as a solution for dependence on foreign oil. His writings on the subject include several short manuscripts, a letter to Russell Baker, and a published article in the Woodstock Times.

A journal by Faier from a 1974 trip to California with his girlfriend, Gloria "Cosmo" Charles, and dog, Pizza. References to Cosmo Charles and Pizza can also be found in Series 1. Correspondence, Series 2.1. Song Writing, and Series 3. Audio Recordings.

Faier's personal and apparently unpublished writings include assorted opinion pieces, memoir writing, descriptive personal experience writing, including a piece on hiking in the Grand Canyon, and prose manuscripts, including a piece on the Saturday Night Barn Dance.