[Vision2020] Mary Travers Dead at 72

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the New York Daily News at:

http://tinyurl.com/o9v9sa

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Folk singer Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 72
BY David Hinckley

Mary Travers, a striking figure of power and glamour in the early-1960s
folk music movement, died Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut
after suffering from leukemia for several years. She was 72.

She was best known as the blond with the bangs who commanded the middle
microphone with Peter, Paul and Mary, a trio that brought folk music from
coffeehouses to top-40 radio.

They also gave much of America its first taste of the young Bob Dylan by
helping to turn his "Blowin' in the Wind" into a national anthem.

The group reunited several years ago to begin touring, and Travers
performed with them until a few months ago, even when she needed
assistance on stage.

Travers, like Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow, saw folk music both as an art
and as an instrument for change. They sang a number of sociopolitical
songs, which Travers later defended.

"I'm not sure I want to be singing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' when I'm 75,"
she said in one interview. "But I know I'll still be singing 'Blowin' in
the Wind.' "

She was born in Louisville, Ky., but grew up in Greenwich Village and came
up through the New York coffeehouse circuit, singing on her own before she
was put together with Stookey and Yarrow by famed manager Albert Grossman,
who also managed Dylan.

The trio took considerable criticism from fellow folk singers for
developing a sound that some considered too "commercial" and not
"authentic" enough.

Travers always strongly defended the trio's sound, saying that they were
in the folk tradition by making music accessible to everyone, not just
academic collectors.

Peter, Paul and Mary were inducted into the Sammy Cahn Songwriters Hall of
Fame in 2006. Travers is survived by two daughters.

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Mary Travers . . . then
http://tinyurl.com/MaryTravers1960s

Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, and Noel Paul Stookey . . . 2009
http://tinyurl.com/PeterPaulMary2009

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"Blowin' in the Wind"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t4g_1VoGw4

"Puff the Magic Dragon"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU

"Where Have All the FLowers Gone?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjy2HCdV6BA

"Early Morning Rain"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OCnHNk2Hac

"If I had a Hammer" (my favorite)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKB3PxG-0E

"Have You Been to Jail For Justice?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOsJ05WvYBc

At the anti-war rally in Washington, DC on April 24, 1971
(FYI, Tea partiers - This is what a million people looks like)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8U6Oh9uSY8

"These Times They Are A-changin'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oU7M4OeSRM

The summers of '67 and '68, sittin' with friends at MacArthur Park in Los
Angeles, listening to the cranked up sounds of Peter, Paul and Mary, while
passing out flyers . . . though long gone, are fresh in my mind as if it
were yesterday.

Rest well and . . .

Peace out, Mary.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine."

- Peter, Paul and Mary's "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?"