RIP: The Incomparable Mary Travers of 1960s Folk Trio Peter, Paul and Mary Has Died (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 16, 2009
Mary Travers of the popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary has passed away at age 72
This makes me sad and a bit wistful. The amazing Mary Travers of the popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, passed away today at age 72. When I was a kid, I loved listening to Peter, Paul and Mary. Mary Travers had an unusual beauty and a magnificent, distinctive voice. There was no one else like her during the trio’s heyday, and no one else like her since. She helped define the turbulent early 1960s era in American music… the era of hippies and love and peace symbols and Greenwich Village artistry and youthful war protest.
A piece of me is in disbelief and shock. Rest in peace, dear Mary, and thank you for the beautiful gift you gave the world.
From New York Times:
Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died Wednesday night in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and had lived in Redding, Conn.
The cause was cancer, said her spokeswoman, Heather Lylis.
Ms. Travers brought a powerful voice and an unfeigned urgency to music that resonated with mainstream listeners. With her straight blond hair and willowy figure and two bearded guitar players by her side, she looked exactly like what she was, a Greenwich Villager straight from the clubs and the coffee houses that nourished the folk-music revival.
“She was obviously the sex appeal of that group, and that group was the sex appeal of the movement,” said Elijah Wald, a folk-blues musician and a historian of popular music.
Peter, Paul & Mary – Where Have All The Flowers Gone – 1962
Peter, Paul & Mary – Puff the Magic Dragon | Televised 1966
From Associated Press:
Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 72
September 16, 2009DANBURY, Conn. — Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died.
The band’s publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.
Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s.
The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage and off. Their version of “If I Had a Hammer” became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included “Lemon Tree,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Puff (The Magic Dragon.)”
They were early champions of Bob Dylan and performed his “Blowin’ in the Wind” at the August 1963 March on Washington.
And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War, managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music that resonated in the American mainstream.
The group collected five Grammy Awards for their three-part harmony on enduring songs like “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
At one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the folk revival movement.
It was heady stuff for a trio that had formed in the early 1960s in Greenwich Village, running through simple tunes like “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
They debuted at the Bitter End in 1961, and their beatnik look — a tall blonde flanked by a pair of goateed guitarists — was a part of their initial appeal. As The New York Times critic Robert Shelton put it not long afterward, “Sex appeal as a keystone for a folk-song group was the idea of the group’s manager, Albert B. Grossman, who searched for months for `the girl’ until he decided on Miss Travers.”
Their debut album came out in 1962, and immediately scored a pair of hits with their versions of “If I Had a Hammer” and “Lemon Tree.” The former won them Grammys for best folk recording, and best performance by a vocal group.
Peter, Paul and Mary – Leaving on a Jet Plane, in 2006 concert
Bob Dylan with Freedom Singers, Joan Baez & Peter, Paul and Mary – Blowin’ In The Wind | Newport Folk Festival, 1963
Peter, Paul & Mary – These Times They Are A-changing | Televised 1966
May God be with you and your family, Mary. Rest in peace.
Jason Killian Meath, Big Hollywood: Remembering Mary
Amused Cynic: Mary Travers, RIP…
About the author
Thank you for this tribute to Mary. I am wistful and sad as well. Mary was a true hero in every respect of the word. I will miss her. She and Peter and Paul made me want to sing for a living and I followed through with that dream that they so profoundly professed, not just in their music but in life as well. Farewell fond fair haired friend, I am still trying to get my hair to be just like yours.
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Thanks for the post.
Peter Paul and Mary were great.
I agree with you, those times were fantastic, all of the groups, all of the artists that essentially exploded from “across the fruited plain”.
I have records that I listen to when I need to go back to those times.
The music that was produced will never be duplicated.