Peter Yarrow, one third of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, dies at 86

Peter Yarrow, the singer, songwriter, and political activist who was a major figure in the folk revival movement of the 1960s as one third of the music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died Tuesday morning in New York City after a four-year battle with bladder cancer. He was 86.

A representative for Yarrow confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly and said his family was by his side in his final moments.

"Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life," Yarrow's daughter, Bethany, said in a statement, alluding to the hit Peter, Paul and Mary song "Puff, the Magic Dragon," which Yarrow co-wrote. "The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest."

Related: Celebrity deaths 2024: Remembering the stars we've lost this year

Bethany Yarrow continued, "Driven by a deep belief that a more compassionate and respectful world is possible, my father has lived a cause driven life full of love and purpose. He always believed, with his whole heart, that singing together could change the world. Please don't stop believing in magic dragons."

Noel Paul Stookey — the Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary — also remembered Yarrow in a heartfelt statement provided to EW.

"Being an only child, growing up without siblings may have afforded me the full attention of my parents, but with the formation of Peter, Paul and Mary, I suddenly had a brother named Peter Yarrow," Stookey said. "He was best man at my wedding and I at his. He was a loving 'uncle' to my three daughters. And, while his comfort in the city and my love of the country tended to keep us apart geographically,  our different perspectives were celebrated often in our friendship and our music."

He added that despite being five months older than Yarrow, who was like a little brother to him, he "grew to be grateful for, and to love, the mature-beyond-his-years wisdom and inspiring guidance he shared with me like an older brother. Politically astute and emotionally vulnerable, perhaps Peter was both of the brothers I never had… and I shall deeply miss both of him."

Stookey is now the last surviving member of Peter, Paul and Mary, following the death of Mary Travers in 2009.

Related: Newport Folk Festival turns 50: The ultimate playlist

Born May 31, 1938, Yarrow was raised in New York and attended college at Cornell University, where his love of folk music emerged. In his senior year, he served as a teaching assistant for an American folklore course called "Romp-n-Stomp," which ignited his passion for the genre.

"In that class, I saw the transformational power folk music had," Yarrow told Westword in 2015. "It was a very, very backward time in our country, and certainly on the ivy league campuses. When the kids at the college took this course, their humanity emerged, and it was palatable and clear. I was in tune with the fact that the world was going to go through a big change and that folk music was going to become an important part of it. It became the soundtrack of that change."

While performing at the infamous Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, Yarrow met festival co-organizer Albert Grossman, a manager who would eventually aid the careers of such legendary acts as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Odetta, and Gordon Lightfoot. In 1961, Grossman proposed the idea of forming a folk trio, in the spirit of the Weavers, but for a new generation. Travers and Stookey were soon recruited, marking the start of Peter, Paul and Mary.

The trio quickly achieved success with their eponymous debut album, which entered the Billboard top 10 and led to a record deal with Warner Bros. With their politically charged music and distinctive three-part harmonies, Peter, Paul and Mary played a critical role in turning the folk music scene into a massively popular movement throughout the '60s.

In August 1963, their cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington cemented the song's legacy as an anthem of the civil rights movement. The trio continued to sing about injustice with such songs as Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" and Yarrow's own "Day Is Done."

They also showcased a more lighthearted side with tracks including their popular song "Puff, the Magic Dragon," penned by Yarrow based on the 1959 Leonard Lipton poem. Throughout their time together, Peter, Paul and Mary earned five Grammys, released two No. 1 albums, and scored six top-10 hits.

The trio split up in 1970 to pursue solo careers, a year after recording the track that would mark their final No. 1 hit, a cover of John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Also in 1969, Yarrow pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 14-year-old girl, after answering the door naked when she knocked on his hotel room door with her older sister to ask for an autograph.

Yarrow served three months in jail and was ultimately pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981. The musician continuously apologized for and expressed regret over the incident, including in 2019, when discussion of the resurfaced incident led him to be disinvited from a small-town arts festival.

"I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty," Yarrow told the New York Times. "I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused in this regard."

Related: The Man Who Made Folk Music Matter

After their 1970 split, Peter, Paul and Mary reunited eight years later for an anti-nuclear-power concert. They remained together until Travers' death, at which point Yarrow and Stookey continued to perform both separately and together. Yarrow was known to perform with his daughter, a folk singer and activist in her own right.

Bethany Yarrow asked that in lieu of flowers, fans contribute her late father's his not-for-profit anti-bullying program, Operation Respect, which has been implemented in more than 22,000 schools internationally.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly