Posted on 09/17/2009 9:09:52 AM PDT by Ben Mugged
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.
On a personal note, I was raised on Peter, Paul and Mary’s music in the 1980s. Making folk music for children was another key aspect of their legacy, from 1969’s Peter, Paul and Mommy to 1993’s Peter, Paul and Mommy, Too concert sequel, ensuring that a younger generation is missing Mary today, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at music-mix.ew.com ...
Was that one or three M-2s in the main cargo door?
The pilot must have been giving it full right rudder when they cut loose! I fired Ma Deuce just over a year ago and it’s still awesome.
BTW, thanks for the update; so PPM was protesting our fighting communism near our own doorstep, along with Red Ed Asner, long after Vietnam. They just got demoted to creep status in my book.
They were the children of the red-inspired Weavers of the 1940s — the living definition of kitsch — a mockery of real folk music, which they copied and made bland.
The Weavers were kitsch?
very, very kitsch. I like folk music and I like nightclub/cabaret music, but folk music watered down to be in a cabert is ipso facto kitsch.
Remember the Air Commando version of the song.
“And Ho Chi Minh would lower his flag when Puff roared out his name”
You're kidding, right?
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