Peter, Paul, and Mary

Peter, Paul, and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of Peter Yarrow (guitar, tenor vocals), Paul Stookey (guitar, baritone vocals), and Mary Travers (contralto vocals). The group's repertoire included songs written by Yarrow and Stookey, early songs by Bob Dylan, and covers of other folk musicians. They were enormously successful in the early- and mid-1960s, with their debut album topping the charts for weeks, and helped popularize the folk music revival.

Summary

06

This Land is Your Land

Peter Yarrow is born on May 31st

1938

Noel Paul Stookey is born on December 30th

1937

Mary Allin Travers is born on November 9th

1936

TIMELINE

Recorded their debut album, Peter, Paul and Mary, and was released by Warner Bros.

1962

Manager Albert Grossman creates group

1961

Early Morning Rain

Puff the Magic Dragon

After the song's initial success, speculation arose—as early as a 1964 article in Newsweek—that the song contained veiled references to smoking marijuana. The word "paper" in the name of Puff's human friend Jackie Paper was said to be a reference to rolling papers, the words "by the sea" were interpreted as "by the C" (as in cannabis), the word "mist" stood for "smoke", the land of "Honahlee" stood for hashish, and "dragon" was interpreted as "draggin'" (i.e., inhaling smoke). Similarly, the name "Puff" was alleged to be a reference to taking a "puff" on a joint. The supposition was claimed to be common knowledge in a letter by a member of the public to The New York Times in 1984. The authors of the song have repeatedly rejected this interpretation and have strongly and consistently denied that they intended any references to drug use. Both Lipton and Yarrow have stated, "'Puff, the Magic Dragon' is not about drugs." Yarrow has frequently explained that the song is about the hardships of growing older and has no relationship to drug-taking. He has also said that the song has "never had any meaning other than the obvious one" and is about the "loss of innocence in children." He has dismissed the suggestion of it being associated with drugs as "sloppy research".

Puff the Magic Dragon

06

During the Vietnam War, the AC-47 Spooky gunship was nicknamed the "Dragon" or "Dragon ship" by the Americans because of its armament and firepower. The nickname soon caught on, and American troops began to call the AC-47 "Puff the Magic Dragon." Robert Mason's Chickenhawk states, in reference to the Peter, Paul, and Mary song playing on a turntable: "'Puff the Magic Dragon' was making me uncomfortable. It was the saccharine song that had inspired the naming of the murderous Gatling-gun-armed C-47s. I couldn't listen."

Puff the Magic Dragon

06

A 1978 animated television special, Puff the Magic Dragon, adapted the song. It was followed by two sequels, Puff the Magic Dragon in the Land of the Living Lies and Puff and the Incredible Mr. Nobody. In all three films, Burgess Meredith voiced Puff. In December 2016, it was announced that Fox Animation would produce a live-action/animation film based on the song with Mike Mitchell as director. As of November 2020, the progress of this project had no updates, leading some fans to conclude that it has been quietly cancelled. In September 1979, a picture-book based on the animated feature, written by Romeo Muller, known for his contributions to the Rankin-Bass holiday TV specials, was published by Avon Books.

Puff the Magic Dragon

06

If I Had a Hammer

As their fame grew, Peter, Paul and Mary mixed music with political and social activism. In 1963, the trio marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and Washington, D.C. The three participated in countless demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. They sang at the 1969 March on Washington, which Mr. Yarrow helped to organize. Though their activism provoked a steady stream of death threats, they were never harmed. "But for years, I used to bite my fingernails on stage," [Mary] Travers says. "There you are and look like the back porch light, and stare out at 12,000 or 15,000 people. Any one of whom could have had a gun."

Social Activism

Blowing in the Wind

The trio broke up in 1970 to pursue solo careers. During 1971 and 1972 Warner released a debut solo album, with the same style cover, by each member of the group. Travers did concerts and lectures across the United States. She also produced, wrote, and starred in a BBC-TV series. Stookey formed a Christian music group, the Body Works Band, and wrote "The Wedding Song (There Is Love)" for Yarrow's marriage to Marybeth McCarthy, the niece of Eugene McCarthy. Britain's Petula Clark also recorded a version of the song, which in 1973 charted strongly in the UK, Australia and others. Yarrow co-wrote and produced Mary MacGregor's Torn Between Two Lovers (No. 1, 1977) and earned an Emmy for three animated TV specials based on "Puff the Magic Dragon". While the group was de facto broken up and touring separately, it still managed to come together for a series of reunions before officially coming back together again. In 1972, the trio reunited for Together for McGovern, a concert at Madison Square Garden to support George McGovern's presidential campaign, and again in 1978 for a concert to protest nuclear energy. This concert was followed by a 1978 summer reunion tour, including a September 3 evening performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. An album, Reunion, was released by Warner in 1978.

Breakup

During 1971 and 1972 Warner released a debut solo album by each member of the group. Each of these had similarly styled cover art. Stookey's album "Paul, and" was the highest of the three on the music charts, reaching number 42 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States in September 1971. Stookey's best-known composition "The Wedding Song (There Is Love)" was included on his debut solo album. The song was also released as a single which reached number 24 in the Billboard Hot 100. He wrote the song as a wedding gift for Peter Yarrow, and refused to perform it for the public until Yarrow requested it at a concert where his wife was present.[Stookey assigned the copyright of this song to the Public Domain Foundation (PDF), a nonprofit 501(c)3.

Paul Stookey - Solo

The Wedding Song

Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums: Mary (1971), Morning Glory (1972), All My Choices (1973), Circles (1974) and It's in Everyone of Us (1978).Travers was married four times. Her first brief union, to John Filler, produced her older daughter, Erika, in 1960. In 1963, she married Barry Feinstein, a prominent freelance photographer of musicians and celebrities. Her younger daughter, Alicia, was born in 1966, and the couple divorced the following year. In the 1970s, she was married to Gerald Taylor, publisher of National Lampoon. After the end of her marriage to Taylor, Travers had a relationship with lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste for several years while raising her daughters in New York. In 1991 she married restaurateur Ethan Robbins and lived with him in the small town of Redding, Connecticut for the remainder of her life.

Mary Travers - Solo

I Shall Be Released

In 1970, Peter served 3 months in jail before being pardoned on Jimmy Carter's last day in office.In 2000, in an effort to combat school bullying, Yarrow helped start Operation Respect, a nonprofit organization that brings to children, in schools and camps, a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other's differences. The project began as a result of Yarrow and his daughter Bethany and his son Christopher having heard the song Don't Laugh at Me (written by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin) at the Kerrville Folk Festival.While campaigning for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Yarrow met McCarthy's niece, Mary Beth McCarthy, in Wisconsin. He was 31, she was 20. They were married in October 1969 in Willmar, Minnesota. Paul Stookey wrote "Wedding Song (There Is Love)" as his gift for their wedding and first performed it at St. Mary's Church in Willmar. They had two children, but later divorced.

Peter Yarrow - Solo

The Colonoscopy Song

Their 1978 summer reunion tour was so popular that the group decided to reunite more or less permanently in 1981. They continued to record albums and tour, playing around 45 shows a year, until Travers's 2009 death. After their reunion, double-bassist Dick Kniss (who had been their bassist in their studio recordings and with their 1960s tours) rejoined the group. Starting in 1990, multi-instrumentalist Paul Prestopino also joined the group. According to the flow of the times, they derived a way to change the lyrics of their songs; boys in the "Puff" became boys and girls, and dark side in the "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" became black side. Some of their new songs, like "Don't Go Down To The Quarry" that criticizes an evil bet, continue the tradition of protest songs. The trio received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 1, 1990.

Reunion

Where have all the flowers gone

In 2004, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia, leading to the cancellation of that year's remaining tour dates. She received a bone marrow transplant. She and the rest of the trio resumed their tour on December 9, 2005, with a holiday performance at Carnegie Hall. The trio canceled several dates of their summer 2007 tour, as Travers had to undergo a second surgery. She was unable to perform on the trio's tour in mid-2009 because of the effects of leukemia, but Yarrow and Stookey performed the scheduled dates as a duo, calling the show "Peter & Paul Celebrate Mary and 5 Decades of Friendship". On September 16, 2009, Travers died at age 72, of complications from chemotherapy, following treatment for leukemia.[16] It was the same year Peter, Paul and Mary were inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Mary Travers Death

I'M Leaving on a jet plane

The End