Peter Yarrow, most well-known as a member of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died. He was 86. Yarrow’s publicist Ken Sunshine confirmed the news.
No cause of death has been shared, but CBS News noted that the “Puff the Magic Dragon” co-writer had been battling bladder cancer for four years prior to his death. Yarrow’s daughter, Bethany, has since issued a statement on her father’s passing, saying, “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life.
“The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist,” she added, “but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.”
Yarrow was born in New York in 1938. As a child he discovered a love and talent for music, eventually graviting to folk music from icons like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. After graduating from Cornell University in 1959, Yarrow moved back to New York, where he met his future bandmates: Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers.
Peter, Paul and Mary were a dominating force of folk throughout the ’60s, landing six Billboard Top 10 singles, two No. 1 albums, and winning five Grammys. The three are also credited with giving Bob Dylan some early exposure, by turning two of his songs — “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” — into Billboard Top 10 hits.
They also performed “Blowin’ in the Wind” at the 1963 March on Washington, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Yarrow’s personal life hit a big development in 1968, when he met his future wife, Mary Beth McCarthy, at a presidential nomination rally for her uncle, Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy. The pair married the following year and had two children before eventually divorcing. It’s since been reported by PEOPLE that the pair remarried in 2022.
The same year that Yarrow married, Peter, Paul and Mary went on hiatus so the trio of musicians could each pursue solo careers. After eight years apart, the three reunited in 1978 for an anti-nuclear-power concert — dubbed “Survival Sunday” — that Yarrow had organized in L.A. Peter, Paul and Mary remained together until Travers’ death in 2009. Yarrow and Stookey went on to continue performing together, after her passing, while also doing occasional solo shows.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Yarrow is survived by a son, Christopher, and a granddaughter, Valentina.
The post Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary Dead at 86 appeared first on VICE.
