Folk singer Peter Yarrow — author of the timeless traditional “Puff the Magic Dragon” and one-third of the legendary Nineteen Sixties trio Peter, Paul and Mary — died Tuesday, a household consultant mentioned.
He was 86 and had been recognized with bladder most cancers 4 years in the past.
Yarrow died in New York City with family members by his facet, publicist Ken Sunshine confirmed to NBC News.
“Our fearless dragon is drained and has entered the final chapter of his magnificent life. The world is aware of Peter Yarrow the long-lasting folks activist, however the human being behind the legend is each bit as beneficiant, artistic, passionate, playful, and clever as his lyrics counsel,” daughter Bethany Yarrow mentioned in a press release.
Yarrow’s dying follows the 2009 passing of 72-year-old Mary Travers, leaving Noel Paul Stookey, 87, because the final surviving member of Peter, Paul and Mary.
The trio’s songs have been a part of the soundtrack for the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War actions. Yarrow co-wrote the group’s most enduring tune, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” primarily based on a poem by the late Lenny Lipton.
The trio joined different notable acts of the time, together with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, on the 1963 March on Washington when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his well-known “I Have a Dream” speech.
They got here to Washington that day on the invitation of Harry Belafonte.
“At the time, the nation was saying a pledge of allegiance, ‘With liberty and justice for all,’ however it was fatuous as a result of it wasn’t for all,” Yarrow would say years later.
“People of Color didn’t have justice. They didn’t have freedom. They could not vote. In Washington, D.C., should you have been an individual of coloration, you could not use a public toilet. You could not use the water fountain except it mentioned ‘for coloured solely.’ So when Peter, Paul and Mary have been approached by Harry Belafonte, we, after all, mentioned sure. We have been properly ready to sing what we sang.”
Other hits by the trio included “Blowin’ within the Wind,” “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” “Lemon Tree” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”
Stookey mentioned rising up as an solely baby, he by no means knew what it was wish to have a brother till assembly Yarrow. They have been greatest males at one another’s weddings.
“He was a loving ‘uncle’ to my three daughters. And, whereas his consolation within the metropolis and my love of the nation tended to maintain us aside geographically, our completely different views have been celebrated usually in our friendship and our music,” Stookey mentioned in a press release.
“I used to be 5 months older than Peter — who turned my artistic, irrepressible, spontaneous and musical youthful brother — but on the identical time, I grew to be pleased about, and to like, the mature-beyond-his-years knowledge and provoking steerage he shared with me like an older brother. Politically astute and emotionally susceptible, maybe Peter was each of the brothers I by no means had … and I shall deeply miss each of him.”
Yarrow stored a comparatively low profile later in life, following his 1970 conviction for molesting a 14-year-old lady in a Washington D.C. resort room in 1969.
He spent three months behind bars and was later pardoned by President Jimmy Carter simply earlier than his time period led to 1981.
The assault completely stained Yarrow’s popularity, significantly within the Me Too period, as he was frequently disinvited from occasions as soon as his title turned generally known as a performer visitor.
Yarrow did not dispute his acts.
“I absolutely assist the present actions demanding equal rights for all and refusing to permit continued abuse and harm — most significantly of a sexual nature, of which I’m, with nice sorrow, responsible,” Yarrow mentioned in a statement to the New York Times, following his dis-invitation to a 2019 pageant in Binghamton, New York.
“I don’t search to attenuate or excuse what I’ve performed and I can’t adequately categorical my apologies and sorrow for the ache and harm I’ve brought about on this regard.”
Yarrow is survived by his spouse Marybeth, son Christopher, daughter Bethany and granddaughter Valentina.
Yarrow’s household requested for followers to make donations, in his honor, to be made to the non-profit, anti-bullying marketing campaign Operation Respect.
“Driven by a deep perception {that a} extra compassionate and respectful world is feasible, my father has lived a trigger pushed life full of affection and goal,” Bethany Yarrow mentioned. “He at all times believed, together with his complete coronary heart, that singing collectively might change the world. Please don’t cease believing in magic dragons. Hope dies after we cease believing, cease caring, and cease singing.”
