Legacy Matters

Mary Travers, R.I.P.

When I was young and in high school, Peter, Paul and Mary were the epitome of sophistication and feeling.    On long bus trips, we would sing If I Had a Hammer or Blowin' in the Wind and feel connected to everyone in the country who wanted civil rights for all. 

Boston Globe

Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died yesterday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.

They were early champions of Bob 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.

New York Times

Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died on Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.
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Ms. Travers brought a powerful voice and an unfeigned urgency to music that resonated with mainstream listeners. With her straight blond hair and willowy figure and two bearded guitar players by her side, she looked exactly like what she was, a Greenwich Villager directly from the clubs and the coffeehouses that nourished the folk-music revival.
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They made folk music not just palatable but accessible to a mass audience,” David Hajdu, ... said in an interview. Ms. Travers, he added, was crucial to the group’s image, which had a lot to do with its appeal. “She had a kind of sexual confidence combined with intelligence, edginess and social consciousness — a potent combination,” he said.

London Times

On August 28, 1963, Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul & Mary joined King’s civil rights march on Washington and performed from the Lincoln Memorial before he delivered his most famous speech. “When he got to his fourth line,” Travers recalled, “I had an epiphany. I turned to Peter and said, ‘This is history’.” Throughout her life she was immensely proud that King had asked her to hold his child on her lap while he spoke.

Ironically, as Dylan’s success grew, Peter, Paul & Mary’s style began to sound dated. Protest music was all the rage and the trio simply did not sound angry enough.