Peter Yarrow, one of many principal singers of the seminal Sixties folks trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died of bladder most cancers, The New York Occasions experiences. He was 86 years previous.
Yarrow was born in New York, in 1938, to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. He attended town’s esteemed Excessive Faculty of Music and Artwork (now generally known as Fiorello H. LaGuardia Excessive Faculty of Music & Artwork and Performing Arts) and Cornell College in Ithaca, New York. Yarrow returned to his native Manhattan, upon commencement from school, and enmeshed himself within the Greenwich Village folks scene. He was recognized nicely sufficient to earn a spot on the 1960 Newport Folks Competition, the place he met Albert Grossman, his eventual supervisor and the person who put collectively Peter, Paul and Mary.
Yarrow and his bandmates, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, launched their debut album, Peter, Paul and Mary, in 1962. The album, that includes principally folks requirements and Pete Seeger songs, discovered nice success. The trio’s second album, 1963’s Shifting, included Yarrow’s most well-known authentic composition, “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Peter, Paul and Mary continued apace with albums almost yearly all through the Sixties, earlier than disbanding initially in 1970.
The group’s breakup was, partially, attributable to Yarrow’s actions with a 14-year-old woman. The singer was convicted, in 1970, of “taking indecent liberties with a minor” earlier than a live performance in Washington, D.C., in the summertime of 1969. He was sentenced to a few months in jail, and Jimmy Carter granted Yarrow a presidential pardon, in 1981, the day earlier than he left workplace.
Peter, Paul and Mary finally reunited, and so they continued to carry out dwell till Mary Travers’ dying in 2009.