Peter Yarrow dies at 86

His folk-music trio recorded album live at BAM

January 7, 2025 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow, of the 1960s’ era musical trio, “Peter, Paul and Mary,” performs during a memorial tribute concert for folk icon and civil rights activist Pete Seeger in New York on July 20, 2014. Photo: Kathy Willens/AP

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MANHATTAN — PETER YARROW, of the folk-music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died in New York City on Tuesday Jan. 7, at 86, according to the New York Times and other sources. The band, which formed in 1961, produced the album, “Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too,” recording it live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater on Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, 1992, and it was released in March 1993.

During its prime, Peter, Paul and Mary collaborated with Bob Dylan and reached the Billboard Top 40 12 times. Six songs reached the Top 10, including “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,” which reached No. 1.Their tender, well-balanced voices and bold social statements, produced five Billboard Top 10 albums. Yarrow wrote or co-wrote many of the group’s songs, and wrote “Day Is Done” and “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which featured simple singalong choruses that also won appeal as children’s songs. Decades later, Yarrow turned each of them into an illustrated children’s book. Although they broke up briefly to pursue solo careers, Peter, Paul & Mary reunited in 1978.

Yarrow’s death on Tuesday from cancer makes Paul Stookey the sole surviving member of the group. Mary Travers died from cancer in 2009.

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