Peter Yarrow
(May 31, 1938 – January 7, 2025)
was an American singer
and songwriter
who found fame
as a member
of the 1960s
folk trio
Peter, Paul and Mary
along with
Paul Stookey
and
Mary Travers.
Born in Manhattan
in 1938,
he attended
New York's
High School of
Music and Art
as a teenager
and was then accepted at
Cornell University.
During his last year
at Cornell in 1959,
he began his
music career
as a student
guitar instructor there,
and after graduating,
met the manager
and impresario
Albert Grossman.
Grossman's idea of a
musical trio
eventually led to
Yarrow forming
a folk band with
Stookey and Travers.
Peter, Paul and Mary's
early hits included
"Lemon Tree"
and
"If I Had a Hammer",
which was followed by
their self-titled debut
studio album
in 1962.
Yarrow co-wrote
(with Lenny Lipton)
one of the group's
best known hits,
"Puff, the Magic Dragon"
(1963).
He was also involved
in the civil rights movement,
performing for the
March on Washington
and
Selma to Montgomery
marches.
Illness and death
Yarrow died from
bladder cancer
at his Upper West Side
apartment,
on
January 7, 2025,
after a month in
hospice care.
He was 86,
and was diagnosed
with the illness
four years prior.
