Peter, Paul and Mary’s music and social activism helped to shape a generation. Through the years, the popular and inspirational folk trio who frequently sang out against war and injustice touched the hearts and consciences of millions of people worldwide, won five Grammy Awards, received eight gold and five platinum records, released six Billboard top 10 singles, had two #1 Billboard chart-topping albums and a dozen top 40 hits, and have been the subject of five PBS documentaries.

Peter Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938 in New York City. Although he took violin lessons as a child, inspired by folks like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, he later switched to guitar. After graduating from Cornell University in 1959 with a degree in Psychology (although he also was a teaching assistant in an American folklore class), Yarrow returned to NYC and began playing the folk clubs and basket houses of Greenwich Village. After meeting music impresario Albert Grossman (who managed Dylan, Janis Joplin, Odetta, and others) who was eager to work with a folk harmony group, Yarrow set about with Grossman to launch one.

Peter, Paul and Mary – featuring Yarrow (guitar and tenor vocals), Noel Paul Stookey’s (guitar and gentle baritone vocals) and Mary Travers’ (contralto vocals) — formed in 1961, having made its first public appearance that fall at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The trio’s eponymous debut album, released on Warner Brothers Records in May 1962, topped the charts that summer, remained in the Billboard magazine top 10 for ten months and the top 20 for two years, sold more than two-million copies, and featured the Grammy Award-winning hit single, “If I Had a Hammer.” That song, penned by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of The Weavers (whom Yarrow viewed as early mentors), became an anthem of the civil rights movement and was performed by the trio on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, along with its rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” during the historic 1963 March on Washington at which the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Peter, Paul and Mary’s rendition of “ Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” was released in the summer of 1963 and also became a big hit for the trio. Archival footage of the trio performing the song during the march appears in the 2014 PBS documentary 50 Years with Peter, Paul and Mary, produced and directed by Emmy Award-winner Jim Brown. As Yarrow observes in the documentary, it was time when “music began to inspire America, tweak its conscience, and articulate its dreams.”

Besides “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the trio also recorded Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In” and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” with its rendition of the latter song also landing in Billboard’s top 10. Yarrow served on the board of the Newport Folk Festival and helped to emcee the event in 1965 when Dylan went electric. Famously, as recreated in the widely acclaimed Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown that is currently screening at movie theaters, Dylan borrowed Yarrow’s guitar to play “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

Although Peter, Paul and Mary performed together over the span of 50 years, there were times when the trio was on hiatus with each of its members pursuing solo careers and projects. The first such break came in 1970, shortly after the release of the trio’s cover of John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” and Yarrow’s conviction after pleading guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with an under-age girl who had come to his dressing room seeking an autograph in 1969, for which he served three months in prison.

While “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” was its last number one hit, Yarrow penned “Light One Candle” for the trio in 1982 – while war was raging in Lebanon – that has since become a popular Chanukah song. Peter, Paul and Mary performed “Light One Candle” — whose lyrics commemorate a war of national liberation fought by the Maccabees, while also calling for peace in the Middle East – for several years before recording it on its 1986 studio album No Easy Walk to Freedom. Its moving lyrics include: “Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice justice and freedom demand. Light one candle for the wisdom to know when the peacemaker’s time is at hand.” The 1986 album’s title track is a civil rights anthem that Yarrow co-wrote with Margery Tabankin.

An anti-war activist, Yarrow helped to organize and produce a number of large events including peace concerts at NYC’s Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium, as well as the 1969 “Celebration of Life” march and demonstration in Washington, DC during which some 500,000 people demanded an end to America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Yarrow was a major champion of other songwriters who particularly sought to nurture the talents of new and emerging ones who, as he put it, “write from the heart.” A founding board member of the Newport Folk Festival, he also developed and hosted a Sunday afternoon concert focused on emerging folk artists and songwriters – providing earl opportunities to such artists as Eric Anderson, Tim Hardin and Buffy St. Marie. Ten years later, in 1972, he partnered with Rod Kennedy, the late founder-producer of the Kerrville Folk Festival to establish what’s now the Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters. The Kerrville New Folk Concerts have become a highlight of the annual festival that is geared towards singer-songwriters of various musical styles and is the longest continuously running festival of its kind in North America.

Yarrow believed that music could be a transformative tool for informing the ethical sensibilities of children. In 1999, he established Operation Respect — an educational nonprofit organization and program that seeks to teach children about tolerance and respect for each other’s differences – using music, video, and conflict resolution curricula developed by Educators for Social Responsibility. In an interview with AcousticMusicScene.com in 2010, Yarrow maintained that “all kids deserve to grow up accepting each other,” expressing concern that 160,000 American children refuse to go to school because of cruelty, according to the American Association of School psychologists. Citing “our need to inherit a peaceful world,” he noted that peace education was regarded as “seditious” when the Operation Respect program was launched. It has since been incorporated into the curriculum of some 22,000 U.S. elementary and middle schools.

A former board member of the Connecticut Hospice, where he also periodically sang for patients and staff, he was long active on behalf of the hospice movement.

Last April, Yarrow joined Stookey in in performing in Boston during a Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Peter, Paul and Mary were among the inaugural class of inductees.

As Yarrow told AcousticMusicScene.com in 2010: “”Music can be used as a powerful force in a world where we desperately need it … Music is something that binds the hearts and can bring us together.” Here’s a link to read that article: https://acousticmusicscene.com/2010/11/27/the-peter-yarrow-sing-along-special-airs-on-pbs-stations/

Many of Peter Yarrow’s songs and those by other songwriters that Peter, Paul and Mary covered over the decades have a timeless quality to them and multigenerational appeal. For Peter Yarrow, “Day is Done,” yet his music and that of Peter, Paul and Mary lives on. So too do his widow Mary Beth (the niece of the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), whom he met during a 1968 Democratic presidential primary campaign event and married the following year), his daughter Bethany, son Christopher, granddaughter Valentina, and lots of adoring fans.

Our folk community mourns his passing, as well as the recent deaths of Mike Brewer (a Missouri-based folk-rock singer-songwriter who, with his musical partner Tom Shipley, recorded the hit song “One Toke Over the Line”), David Mallet (the Maine-based singer-songwriter best known for “Garden Song”), and Josh White, Jr. (a Michigan-based singer and guitarist who followed in his late father’s folk and blues footsteps for decades).

One of a number of musicians who helped to spur interest in the fusion of blues and rock music during the 1960s, Kalb credited Son House, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James among his influences. He co-founded the Blues Project in the mid-60s; its original lineup also included fellow guitarist and vocalist Steve Katz, Andy Kulberg (bass & flute), Roy Blumenfeld (drums, and Tommy Flanders (vocals). Keyboardist Al Kooper later joined the group, replacing Flanders, and can be heard on the group’s debut release Live at the Café Au Go Go on Verve/Folkways. The album was recorded at the then-popular Greenwich Village nightclub at which the group frequently performed. Among the album’s tracks were covers of songs by folksingers Eric Andersen and Donovan. The Blues Project veered into more psychadelic blues-rock-oriented music by the time of its follow-up release, Projections, and would record one more album before disbanding. Kalb reincarnated the group with a different lineup in 1969, after Katz and Kooper left to form Blood, Sweat and Tears. However, Kalb reunited with Kooper for a recorded concert at Greenwich Village’s iconic The Bottom Line in 1969.

After leaving the Blues Project, Kalb turned to solo work, taught guitar, performed with the Danny Kalb Trio, and released several albums – both studio and live recordings – into the 2000s. He and fellow guitarist Stefan Grossman recorded an album entitled Crosscurrents in 1968, while Katz joined the two for a 2007 release entitled Play a Little Fiddle. Kalb’s last recording, Moving in Blue, was released in 2013 and featured various sidemen and guest artists.

Prior to the Blues Project, Kalb was a solo artist and session guitarist who performed and recorded with such notable folk artists as Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. Kalb, who started playing guitar at age 13 and was attending the University of Wisconsin when he met and befriended Dylan while the two were performing at local coffeehouses. In 2013 Kalb told AM New York that “Dylan crashed with me for a few weeks in Madison on his way from Hibbing, Minnesota to New York.” He recalled that “We had so much fun, I dropped out and followed him.” Kalb was part of a live recording with Dylan that aired on New York City’s WBAI in 1961. He can be heard playing guitar on Ochs’ first official album All the News That’s Fit to Sing (1964) and on Collins’ Fifth Album (1969).

A protégé of Dave Van Ronk, Kalb joined the Mayor of MacDougal Street’s band, the Ragtime Jug Stompers, in 1963. Also in the band were guitarist and blues ethnomusicologist Sam Charters and multi-instrumentalist Artie Rose. During 1963-1965, Kalb also recorded with the True Endeavor Jug Band featuring Charters and Artie Traum, with Charters as the New Strangers, and with Rose and Barry Kornfeld as The Folk Stringers.

Born in Brooklyn, New York on September 19, 1942, Kalb grew up in Mount Vernon, a Westchester County community just north of New York City. Diagnosed with cancer several years ago, Kalb died at a Brooklyn nursing home. He is survived by his brother Jonathan.

There’s a Bright Side Somewhere is the first new album in seven years for Traum, whose decades-long involvement in traditional and contemporary folk music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, teacher, recording artist, and a top-notch fingerstyle guitarist. The album features a mix of 13 traditional and traditional-style American roots music songs.

[Here’s a link to view a video of Happy Traum performing “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere.” A traditional song, it was reportedly first recorded by Reverend Gary Davis in 1961.]

An active participant in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the late 1950s-1960s, Happy — and his late brother Artie — played coffeehouses on the weekends, while he led Sunday Afternoon Sings at Washington Square Park for a couple of years. A student of blues guitar legend Brownie McGhee, whom he cites as a major influence on his picking style, Traum made his recording debut in 1963 with Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, the Freedom Singers and others on Folkways Records, and later recorded four duets with Dylan on his Greatest Hits, Volume 2. Happy Traum has played concerts, clubs and festivals throughout the world; released many CDs; and has appeared and/or recorded with such folk luminaries as Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Larry Campbell, Dylan, Levon Helm, Maria Muldaur, John Sebastian, and Chris Smither. Sebastian and Campbell also accompany him on his latest recording — along with Darol Anger, Cindy Cashdollar, Amy Helm, Bruce Molsky, Geoff Muldaur, Eugene Ruffolo, Tony Trischka, and Jay Ungar, among others.

One of America’s best-known guitar instructors, Traum also is the author of more than a dozen guitar instruction books and has written for a number of leading music publications. He even had a stint as editor of Sing Out! Magazine. As the co-owner of Homespun Tapes, he has produced more than 600 music lessons on DVDs, books and CDs with some of the world’s top artists.

In a September 12 post to the Folk DJ Listserv, Traum expressed thanks to the DJs “for listening, and for playing this recording that I put my heart and soul into for the past couple of years.” Wrote Traum: “The fact that you care about this music, and do such great work in getting it out to your listeners is an affirmation of my life’s work, as well as that of so many other wonderful artists.” He continued … “to be recognized in this way by each of you feels like a culmination of decades-of immersion into the folk/blues/traditional music genres. Thinking of my first album with the New World Singers in 1963 (with Bob Dylan’s liner notes); recordings with my late brother, Artie Traum; the ones we produced for the Mud Acres/Woodstock Mountains Revue in the 1970s; and the solo CDs I have put out since then, I have always sought to up my game and to convey the honesty and joy of acoustic music, and the guitar, in its many forms. By playing songs from There’s a Bright Side Somewhere, you have conveyed a huge honor on me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”