Peter Yarrowmember of the famous folk trio Peter, Paul and Marywhose musical anthems were an important part of the protest movement of the 60s in USAdied on Tuesday in New York at 86 years old.
His longtime spokesperson said in a statement that Yarrow, the songwriter behind hits like “Puff the Magic Dragon“, had been fighting bladder cancer for four years.
“Our intrepid dragon is tired and has entered the final chapter of his magnificent life,” Yarrow’s daughter, Bethany, said in the statement.
“The world knows Peter Yarrow, the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is as generous, creative, passionate, playful and wise as his lyrics suggest,” he added.
Yarrow and her bandmates Mary Travers and Noel “Paul” Stookey burst onto the American folk music scene in 1961 with an influential style accented by rich three-part harmonies and progressive activist politics.
The son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938 in Manhattan, New York.
He studied painting before dedicating himself to singing and guitar at Cornell University. After graduating, he became a regular in the burgeoning folk scene of New York’s bohemian neighborhood Greenwich Village.
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Who is Peter, Paul and Mary?
Peter, Paul and Mary is a band that mixed folk and pop roots with commercial success, releasing their self-titled debut album in 1962. The album topped the US charts and sold more than two million copies.
His cover of colleague Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” became a celebrated popular performance of that anti-war anthem during the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, cementing his place in folk activism.
Other hits for the trio were “Day Is Done” and “The Great Mandala” and a cover of John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” that reached number one on the charts.
The band disbanded in 1970.