Posted on 09/17/2009 9:03:39 AM PDT by mlizzy
Mary Travers, a striking figure of power and glamour in the early-1960s folk music movement, died Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut after suffering from leukemia for several years. She was 72.
She was best known as the blond with the bangs who commanded the middle microphone with Peter, Paul and Mary, a trio that brought folk music from coffeehouses to top-40 radio.
They also gave much of America its first taste of the young Bob Dylan by helping to turn his "Blowin' in the Wind" into a national anthem.
The group reunited several years ago to begin touring, and Travers performed with them until a few months ago, even when she needed assistance on stage.
Travers, like Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow, saw folk music both as an art and as an instrument for change. They sang a number of sociopolitical songs, which Travers later defended.
"I'm not sure I want to be singing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' when I'm 75," she said in one interview. "But I know I'll still be singing 'Blowin' in the Wind.' "
She was born in Louisville, Ky., but grew up in Greenwich Village and came up through the New York coffeehouse circuit, singing on her own before she was put together with Stookey and Yarrow by famed manager Albert Grossman, who also managed Dylan.
The trio took considerable criticism from fellow folk singers for developing a sound that some considered too "commercial" and not "authentic" enough.
Travers always strongly defended the trio's sound, saying that they were in the folk tradition by making music accessible to everyone, not just academic collectors.
Peter, Paul and Mary were inducted into the Sammy Cahn Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. Travers is survived by two daughters.
Dang, Henry Gibson....
Well, I haven’t seen the show in a while. ;)
Never heard of Henry, so he might not count.
Well I’m glad you’ve heard of me!
I had heard that one of the guys was Jewish, one a Penticostal Preacher, and as the article says Mary had two daughters so I would doubt the lesbian description.
Like most here I didn't like their politics, but did enjoy the sound.
Especially since it wasn’t via an obituary, eh?
I’m cool with obituaries as long as mine doesn’t contain the words “aspiring rapper.”
We’ll stick with “perspiring freeper”
No sweat.
Good riddance to this trash.......R.I.H.
You are a pig.
You a troll?? Need a ZOT? The b-—ch aided and abetted the enemies of this nation.....R.I.H.
"If I had a hammer...."
“...And now a poem by Henry Gibson.”
I never found him funny and couldn’t understand why the audience/laugh track chuckled whenever they heard that line, his only claim to fame.
Where have all the liberals gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the liberals gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the liberals gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
He was good as a Nazi in The Blues Brothers.
Sad when anyone passes. However this frees up the guys to get a baritone voice in there and reform as Peter Paul and Larry.
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