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Re: Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dies at age 72
by Simon Vozick-Levinson
It never stops, does it? Last night brought the news that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary had become, at age 72, yet another beloved entertainer gone too soon. Not a complete surprise — Travers was diagnosed with leukemia in 2004 — but very sad nonetheless.
Peter, Paul and Mary played a crucial role in helping the folk-music scene become a mass popular movement in the early 1960s. They couldn’t have done it without Mary Travers’ clear, expressive vocals. A gifted interpreter of others’ songs, she was the principal reason why the trio’s covers of Pete Seeger’s “If I Had A Hammer” and Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” were arguably better-loved than the originals. Harmonizing on silly kid’s tunes like the classic “Puff the Magic Dragon” one minute, playing for social justice at the historic March on Washington another — both in the year 1963 — Travers, along with bandmates Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, epitomized something about that transformative era.
