The Gentle-Spoken Folk Singer & Peace & Civil Rights Activist Dies At Age 86
A Brief Tribute by Doug Draper at Niagara At Large
Posted January 7th, 2025
Peter Yarrow in his later years. He died this January 7th, 2025 at age 86.
Peter Yarrow, with his friends and fellow folksingers Paul Stookey and Mary Travers of ‘Peter, Paul and Mary’ fame, along with Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and others that played the clubs and coffee houses in Greenwich Village, N.Y. in the early 1960s, were at the vanguard of a folk music revival that continues to inspire singers and songwriters today.
I was fortunate enough to see Peter, Paul and Mary in concert three times.
And in 1995, I was there to hear them perform a few of their best-known anthems for peace and social justice – Pete Seeger’s ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone?’ and ‘If I Had A Hammer’, and Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ – at a 25th commemoration at Kent State University in Ohio in memory of four students who, in 1070, were shot and killed on that campus by Ohio Guardsmen during a protest of the Vietnam War.
The cover of the first Peter, Paul and Mary album, released in the early 1960s. That is Peter Yarrow on the left.
At that same commemoration, Peter, Paul and Mary hosted a seminar on what we can all do together to make a more peaceful world. Peter did much of the talking during that session and impressed this listener and I’m sure many others as the kind, warm-hearted person we need more of in this world to make that peace happen.
Peter Yarrow leaves us at a time when we need people like him more than ever. Hopefully, his passion and values will continue to guide us.
‘Puff The Magic Dragon’ was one of the songs Peter Yarrow had a hand in composing and one that he and the trio may be best known for. But I am going to leave you with one that Peter, Paul and Mary recorded later that is just as capable of bringing back the child in us and is very special too.
It is called ‘The Kid’. To hear it, click on the screen immediately below, and crank it up loud to soak in the trademark interplay of those voices –
May you Rest in Peace Peter.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
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