Folk singer and activist Peter Yarrow died in New York City yesterday. The folk singer and activist was best known as being a member of the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary and co-writer of a timeless song in “Puff the Magic Dragon.” He was also a political activist and supported causes such as opposition to the Vietnam War and. school anti-bullying programs. Yarrow was 86 and had been diagnosed with bladder cancer four years ago.
Peter Yarrow was born in Manhattan on May 31, 1938. His parents were educated Ukrainian Jewish immigrants with his father being a successful lawyer and mother working as a speech and drama teacher. Yarrow grew up in New York City, attending New York’s High School of Music and Art and later Cornell University. Among his Cornell classmates was Lenny Lipton who wrote the poem that became the basis for the lyrics to the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” He and Yarrow both consistently maintained that the song was never meant to be seen as an allegory for marijuana use.
After developing a love for signing and playing to large crowds at Cornell, Yarrow went on to play in New York City folk clubs, appeared on the CBS television show Folk Sound USA, and performed at the Newport Folk Festival where he met his future manger Albert Grossman. It was Grossman who had the idea of creating a new pop singing group and recommended that Yarrow get in touch with Mary Travers whose prior credits included being a backup singer for Pete Seeger on occasion. Together with Noel Paul Stookey they formed Peter, Paul and Mary and would go on to craft songs that served as part of the soundtrack of the ’60s and both the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements.
The group made their New York City debut in 1961 at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village and were signed by Warner Bros. soon after. Some of their earliest hits include 1962’s “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer”, a 1949 song co-written by Pete Seeger which earned them two Grammy Awards. The trio’s first album, Peter, Paul & Mary, remained in the Top 10 for ten months and in the Top 20 for two years.
The following year Peter, Paul and Mary would go on to popularize “Blowin’ In The Wind,” a song written by a still relatively unknown Bob Dylan. They even appeared on stage with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington where their performance of the song established it as a civil rights anthem.
By 1964, the 26-year-old Yarrow had joined the Board of the Newport Folk Festival, where he had performed as an unknown just four years earlier. He would go on to help create some of the trio’s biggest hits including “Day Is Done”, “Light One Candle”, and of course “Puff The Magic Dragon,” which he later produced for three CBS TV specials, earning him an Emmy nomination. He was also instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk and the Kerrville Folk Festival.
In 1970, Yarrow was convicted and served three months in prison for taking “improper liberties” with a 14-year-old. He was later granted a presidential pardon by Jimmy Carter in 1981, although the incident would permanently stain Yarrow’s reputation. He would atone publicly for it the rest of his life, issuing a statement in 2019 saying, “I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty.”
In 2000, in an effort to combat school bullying, Yarrow helped start Operation Respect, a nonprofit organization that provides children, in school and camps, a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other’s differences. In 2003 a congressional resolution recognized Yarrow’s achievements and those of Operation Respect.
Peter Yarrow would remain a New York City fixture, performing across the city for volunteers who worked for the Obama presidential campaign in November of 2008 and later with his son and daughter in an appearance at Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests on October 3, 2011.
Yarrow is survived by his wife, Marybeth; a son, Christopher; a daughter, Bethany; and a granddaughter, Valentina. His family has asked fans to make donations in his honor to the nonprofit anti-bullying campaign Operation Respect.
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