Peter Yarrow, commenting on his friend's death on the group's official site summed up their contribution this way. "The trio's growth, our creativity, our ability to emerge over the years completely accepting of one another, warts and all, was a miracle...When we performed together, we gave the best to each other and to the audiences who came to hear us."
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 Grossman ... who searched for months for `the girl' until he decided on Miss Travers."
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 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."
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.
"Moving" was the follow-up, including the hit tale of innocence lost, "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" — which reached No. 2 on the charts, and generated since-discounted reports that it was an ode to marijuana.
Album No. 3, "In the Wind," featured three songs by the 22-year-old Dylan. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Blowin' in the Wind" both reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period.
PP&M were one of the few musical acts that made any sort of impression on me as a very young boy. We had an English teacher who used their lyrics in lessons, great stuff.
ReplyDeleteA sad day for music lovers every where.
Indeed it is Jim. Their early impact on me as a grade-schooler was bigger than any other group around--including "The Beatles".
ReplyDeleteIt's only now almost a half century later that I realise the great impact on the world in general and me in particular that the popular folk singers of the 60's & early 70's had. The lyrics and issues tackled have all become so very important today.
ReplyDeleteAnd I say the above as an avowed anti 'tree hugger'!
Recently we have lost so many people we respected, who may have been part of our extreme youth in some way. I remember their music because my brother and his friends were very keen, at a time when they really thought they could help to change the world.
ReplyDeleteWhat a legacy they left in terms of lyrics that made people ask questions and expect answers.
I heard this on BBC Radio 5 'Up All Night' programme in the early hours of this morning. The programme which connects to the US only mentioned Mary's death briefly in the 3.am news headlines.
ReplyDeletePP&M were also important to me when I was young, they were part of the 'folk revival' during the early 60s and a bit of Greenwich Village that broke into the mainstream on this side of the Atlantic like Bob Dylan was to do a year or two later. I never saw PP&M live which I regret having seen most of other major folk performers like Pete Seeger, Josh White,Tom Paxton, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee,Bob Dylan etc by the time I left school.
I did have some of their albums though and as you say they were associated with the 'progressive' causes that underscored the counterculture that arose at that time in the US and also the UK (which had its own folk revival).
PP&M were the last incarnation of a folk group format that had developed in Greenwich Village in the 1940s and included the Almanac Singers and The Weavers. Both of those earlier groups were connected to Alan Lomax and included such people as Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and Pete Seeger. The Almanac Singers were particularly associated with left wing causes and were part of the so-called Popular Front raising money at benefit concerts for the Communist Party USA from 1940-1950 and were dubbed 'seditious' by the FBI.
PP&M continued the progressive political current of New York folk scene from 1961 and had a number of hits in the UK including the Pete Seeger songs 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone?' and 'Lemon Tree'.
Mary was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2004, until which time she had been performing again with Peter and Paul. Her health deteriorated and the band had to abandon their planned come-back tour.
She will forever associated with a time when 'protest songs' helped to inspire a transAtlantic anti-war movement (which still exists today) during the Cold War period, translating the songs of the balladeers of McDougal Street for a global audience.
Mary died last night aged 72, her contribution will never be forgotten by old folkniks like me, a sad loss to the world of music and politics.
Thanks for posting this tribute to a great performer and campaigner Doug.
Sad. I used to fancy her. It makes me feel old all these 60s pop stars dying around us.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of the better aspects of human nature I think, Jim, that we can find some common ground in the words of a few songs.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I did hug a tree oak once a few years ago in a near-by park. Worst case of poison oak I had since my last camp-out as a kid.
I'll drink to that.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a fine summation, Cassandra. The generation of young people who came out of the 1950's included many people who were tired of just conforming and being afraid of "The Russians" and "The Bomb" and wanted an America with more justice and less poverty.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned so many of the other groups that came before PP &M, AA. Although I'm familiar with Seeger of course (who just turned 90) and The Weavers (who were black-listed in the 1950's, as were many other folk groups.)
ReplyDeleteThe latter groups enjoyed a revival thanks to a popular during the dark days of the early Thatcher-Reagan days, and thanks to a film documentary and CD re-releases of their songs. Seeger is, of course, now a cultural lion.
Protest music not only came forth in America from Greenwich Village, but also found a venue in San Francisco's North Beach nightclubs like Enrico Banducci's "The Hungry I". Banducci is another surviving sage of that era. It is pleasant to see that once-controversial performers are now much higher regarded than the mainstream vanilla-types who once sneered at them.
Thanks for expanding this brief tribute, AA.
I have always enjoyed PP&M. Their music has transcended generations. Thank you for sharing two songs with us today.
ReplyDeleteYou are not old just more mature than the rest of us
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about this particular venue Doug, I'll check it out. Of course San Francisco was the other pole in the US bi-polar beat generation.. which culminated with two big 1960s festivals......the Cuba Crisis and Woodstock. The first was a mass extinction festival and the second was a sigh of relief festival.
ReplyDeleteThen of course there is Ferlinghetti's flight to San Francisco in th early 50s, California Dreaming, The San Francisco Renaissance and the Merry Pranksters cavorting with Neal Cassidy, Ken Kesey and the whole warped road show right across California and Oregon. Oh yes there is plenty more to say about those times I think Doug. As your Mama Cass reference makes clear.
It does me too, Jeff. Like watching a ship sailing away.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, AA. :Lots of great awakenings on both ends of the continent.
ReplyDeleteYou are the first person I've come across that make the direct connection between the US-Soviet October Crisis Nuke Crisis and Woodstock. The sad prolouge and the happy epilouge to the Sixties, and a good yardstick of measure on how much America had changed in seven short years.
And they were certainly both big attention-getters.
Tom Wolfe wrote about the Pranksters in "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test", which was my literary introduction to those times. I had the dubious vantage point of reading it in a bean-bag chair aspart of the placid Summer of '78, just before the great conservative backlash hit the country with the rise of tax revolts, angry fundementalists and former General Electric pitchman Ronald "Dutch" Reagan.
And transcend this music sure does!
ReplyDeleteThanks Fred.