Peter Yarrow, whose caring and righteous vocals helped establish the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary as one of the most popular folk acts of the 1960s, spoke Tuesday at Manhattan's Upper West He died at his home in Side. He was 86 years old.
His death was confirmed by his publicist, Ken Sunshine. Sunshine said the cause was bladder cancer, which Yarrow had been battling for the past four years.
Many of the trio's recordings split the vocal parts evenly, weaving Mr. Yarrow's precise tenor around Noel Paul Stookey's gentle baritone and Mary Travers' warm contralto. But Mr. Yarrow is also a notable lead vocalist, having fronted recordings with such famous groups as “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “The Day Is Done,” and “The Great Mandala.” All of them were written or co-written by him. . “Puff” became a No. 2 hit on Billboard, and “Day Is Done” broke into the top 20.
Mr. Yarrow wrote many of the other songs the group recorded, many of them co-written with Mr. Stookey, the group's last surviving member (Mr. Travers died in 2009 at age 72).
At their peak, Peter, Paul and Mary reached the Billboard Top 40 12 times. Six of the songs reached the top 10, including a No. 1 cover of John Denver's “Leavin' on a Jet Plane.” He has had five Billboard Top 10 albums and topped the magazine's album chart twice.
Like many folk groups of the time, Peter, Paul and Mary were well known for their progressive politics as well as their music. In August 1963, they participated in the March on Washington, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. They performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and sang Bob Dylan's “Blowin' in the Wind,” which became a Top 5 Billboard hit that same month. Their performance in Washington helped establish the song as a civil rights anthem.
The trio also recorded songs and performed concerts in support of liberal presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. Mr. Yarrow's lyrics often emphasized the group's political commitments. “The Great Mandala”, released in 1967, told the story of war. Protesters on hunger strike. “Day Is Done'' (1969), addressed to his son, suggests that the next generation may create a more just world.
“Day Is Done” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” both featured simple singalong choruses and intentionally innocent perspectives, and also functioned as nursery rhymes. Decades later, Yarrow compiled each of them into a picture book. “Puff” also inspired a 1978 animated television special and was so popular that it spawned two sequels.
Peter Yarrow was born in Manhattan on May 31, 1938, to Bernard and Vera (Bultakov) Yarrow, Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. His father was a lawyer and served as an assistant district attorney in New York under Thomas E. Dewey. He later became vice president of the CIA-funded organization Radio Free Europe.
Mr. Yarrow's parents divorced when he was five years old. Although his father later converted to Protestantism, Mr. Yarrow considered Jewish teachings to be a major inspiration in his life.
He studied painting at Manhattan's High School of Music, Arts and Performing Arts (now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Arts and Performing Arts). As an undergraduate at Cornell University, he began singing and playing the guitar after taking a course in American folk literature taught by folklorist and historian Harold William Thompson.
After graduation, Mr. Yarrow moved to New York City and became a performer in the fruitful Greenwich Village folk scene. “I wanted to be involved in music that creates community,” he told music magazine Rebeat in 2015. Music, he added, “reaches people's hearts and mobilizes them for a more humane society.”
His success in the Village led to him being invited to appear on the CBS television special “Folk Sounds USA” in 1960. I also had the opportunity to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, where I met the festival's founder, Albert Grossman. Manager of singer Odetta.
Mr. Grossman creates a new group that expands and updates the formula of the Weavers, a folk harmony group of one woman and three men (one of whom was Pete Seeger) who had great success in the 1950s. I was thinking of doing it. He paired Mr. Yarrow with Mr. Travers, who had appeared in village clubs and had sung with Mr. Seeger several times. At Travers' suggestion, the duo became a trio with the addition of Noel Paul Stookey, who had played with them at a local club. Using Mr. Stookey's middle name, they settled on a catchy Biblical name.
This trio presented a convincing visual image. Two men, wearing dark ties, beatnik goatees, and serious expressions, stood on either side of Mr. Travers, whose blonde hair framed his noble cheekbones. Mr. Grossman booked them for a run at the Bitter End of Bleecker Street, and a buzz was born. In 1961, the group signed with Warner Bros. Records and released their debut album, simply called “Peter, Paul, and Mary,'' the following May.
Mr. Yarrow sang lead on the group's first single, “Lemon Tree,” which was based on a Brazilian folk song and reached the Billboard Top 40. The full album rose to number one following its second single, “If I Had a Hammer.” The song, written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hayes of the Weavers, was a Top 10 hit and won two Grammy Awards. The album remained in the top 20 for two years and sold over 2 million copies.
The group's next album, Movin', released in early 1963, featured “Puff the Magic Dragon,” whose lyrics were written by Mr. Yarrow's friend Lenny Lipton when he was 19 years old. Based on and inspired by poetry. Based on Ogden Nash's early poem “The Story of the Dragon Custard.” There was later speculation that the song was referring to smoking marijuana, but Yarrow strongly denied that interpretation.
In June 1963, the trio released a cover of “Blowin' in the Wind”. (Bob Dylan was also a client of Mr. Grossman's.) The book sold an estimated 300,000 copies in its first week. In mid-August, it took second place. It went on to sell over 1 million copies. Their version of another Dylan song, “Don't Think Twice, It's Alright,” entered the Billboard Top 10 and pushed the writer's own album, “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan” into the Top 30. Ta.
In 1964, Mr. Yarrow joined the Newport Folk Festival board. In 1970, he created the New Folks Concert at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, which became an annual event. The year before, he helped organize the National Mobilization to End the War demonstration against the Vietnam War, which drew an estimated 500,000 people in Washington.
Peter, Paul and Mary had the biggest hit of their career in 1970 when “Leavin' on a Jet Plane,” featuring Travers' coveted contralto, reached No. 1. However, just a few months later, they announced their breakup.
The pair split in part to pursue solo careers, but Yarrow made sexual advances toward a 14-year-old girl who came to his dressing room with her 17-year-old sister to get an autograph. He was even accused of. 1969. He pleaded guilty to committing an “indecent act” on the girl and served three months of a one- to three-year prison sentence.
In 1981, Mr. Yarrow received a presidential pardon from Jimmy Carter, but the case continued to be an issue for many years during the campaigns of politicians he supported.
In 2019, at the height of the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse of women, Yarrow's scheduled performance at an arts festival in upstate New York was canceled following protests. In a remorseful statement, Mr Yarrow said the organizers' choice to exclude him was “not unfair or unreasonable”.
In a statement to the New York Times, he said: “I do not intend to trivialize or excuse what I did, and I fully express my apologies and sadness for the pain and injury I have caused.'' I can't do that.''
In 1969, Mr. Yarrow married Marybeth McCarthy, the niece of Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. (Mr. Stookey wrote a “wedding song” that has since been performed in their honor at weddings around the world.) The marriage ended in divorce, but the couple remarried in 2022. In addition to her, Mr. Yarrow is survived by a son, Christopher; daughter Bethany; and granddaughter.
Mr. Yarrow released his first solo album, titled “Peter,'' in 1972, but sales were poor. Four years later, he achieved even greater success with the song “Torn Between Two Lovers,” written with Philip Jarrell, which became a No. 1 hit for mid-career pop singer Mary McGregor.
Peter, Paul and Mary reunited for one-off benefit concerts in 1972 and 1978. After their second reunion, they began touring regularly and continued to perform until Travers' death. Since then, Mr. Yarrow and Mr. Stookey have performed together regularly.
In a statement Tuesday, Mr. Stookey called Mr. Yarrow his “creative, uninhibited, spontaneous and musical younger brother,” but added, “I appreciate and love Yarrow for his mature wisdom beyond his years.” It happened,” he added. And it was an inspiring mentorship that he taught me like a big brother. ”
“Peter was probably the brother I never had, and I will miss them both very much,” Stookey said.
In 2000, Mr. Yarrow helped found Operation Respect, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating bullying and promoting tolerance among children.
In later years, he frequently performed with his daughter, cellist Rufus Cappadocia, in a trio known as Peter, Bethany, and Rufus. Their success strengthened Mr. Yarrow's faith in his chosen genre.
“I believe that folk music has had a positive impact on social decency, humanity and empathy,” he told Reuters in 2008. “Peter, Paul and Mary had a large audience, some of whom did not agree with our politics, but they were moved by the human nature of our songs.”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
