Peter Yarrow

Peter Yarrow (born May 31, 1938) is an American singer and songwriter who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote (with Leonard Lipton) one of the group's greatest hits, "Puff, the Magic Dragon". He is also a political activist and has supported liberal causes that range from opposition to the Vietnam War to the creation of Operation Respect, an organization that promotes tolerance and civility in schools.

Peter Yarrow
Yarrow in 2008
Background information
Born (1938-05-31) May 31, 1938
Manhattan, New York City
GenresFolk
Occupation(s)
  • Singer-songwriter
  • guitarist
  • record producer
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
Associated acts

Early life and family

Peter Yarrow was born in Manhattan, the son of Vera Wisebrode (née Vira Burtakoff) and Bernard Yarrow. His parents were educated Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, whose families had settled in Providence, Rhode Island.

Bernard Yarrow (1899–1973) attended the University of Kraków (Kraków, Poland) and the Odessa University (Odessa, Ukraine), before emigrating to the United States in 1922 at the age of 23.[1] He anglicized his surname from Yaroshevitz to Yarrow, obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University in 1925 where he joined Phi Sigma Delta fraternity,[2] and in 1928 graduated from Columbia Law School. He then maintained a private law practice in New York City until 1938, when he was appointed an assistant district attorney under the then-district attorney, Thomas E. Dewey. In 1944 he was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, where he served with distinction.[3]

After the war, Bernard Yarrow joined Sullivan and Cromwell, the Dulles brothers' law firm.[4] He was a founding board member of the National Committee for a Free Europe, an anti-Communist organization. In 1952 he became a senior vice-president of the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe, an organization he helped to found.[5]

Yarrow's mother Vera (1904–1991), who had come to America at age three, became a speech and drama teacher at New York's Julia Richman High School for girls. She and Bernard divorced in 1943 when their son Peter was five, and Vera subsequently married Harold Wisebrode, the executive director of the Central Synagogue in Manhattan.[6] Bernard Yarrow married his wartime London OSS partner Silvia Tim, and converted to Protestantism.[7]

Peter Yarrow graduated second in his class among male students with a physics prize from New York's High School of Music and Art, where he had studied painting. He was accepted at Cornell University as a physics major but soon switched majors, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1959. Among his Cornell classmates were Thomas Pynchon and Richard Fariña.

Music career
See also: Peter, Paul and Mary
Yarrow at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2016

Yarrow began singing in public during his last year at Cornell while participating in Harold Thompson's popular American Folk Literature course, colloquially known on campus as "Romp-n-Stomp". The course was "a highlight of late-1950s student life at Cornell", Yarrow reminisced, and the ability to sing and play guitar was a prerequisite for enrollment.[8] Thompson would lecture on a topic for 20 or 30 minutes and afterwards a student would sing songs related to his theme. The experience of performing in front of a large audience was a thrilling one for Yarrow, who discovered he loved it. He branched out to lead community sings on weekends.

Upon graduation, Yarrow played in folk clubs in New York City, appeared on the CBS television show Folk Sound USA, and performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where he met manager and musical impresario Albert Grossman.[9] One day, the two were at Israel Young's Folklore Center in Greenwich Village discussing Grossman's idea for a new group that would be "an updated version of the Weavers for the baby-boom generation ... with the crossover appeal of the Kingston Trio". Yarrow noticed a picture of Mary Travers on the wall and asked Grossman who she was. "That's Mary Travers," Grossman said. "She'd be good if you could get her to work."[10] The lanky, blonde Kentucky-born Travers was well connected in Greenwich Village folk song circles. While still a high-school student at the progressive Elizabeth Irwin High School she had been picked out by Elizabeth Irwin's chorus leader Robert De Cormier to sing in a trio called The Song Swappers, backing up Pete Seeger in the 1955 Folkways LP reissue of the Almanac Singers' The Talking Union and two other albums. As well as performing twice with Seeger at Carnegie Hall, Travers had also played a folksinger in a short-lived Broadway play called The Next President, starring satirist Mort Sahl, but she was known to be painfully introverted and loath to sing professionally.

To draw Travers out, "Mr. Yarrow went to Ms. Travers's apartment on MacDougal Street, across from the Gaslight, one of the principal folk clubs. They harmonized on 'Miner's Lifeguard', a union song, and decided that their voices blended. To fill out the trio, Ms. Travers suggested Noel Stookey, a friend doing folk music and stand-up comedy at the Gaslight." They chose the catchy "Peter, Paul and Mary" as the name for their group, since Noel Stookey's middle name was Paul, and rehearsed intensively for six months, touring outside New York before debuting in 1961 as a polished act at The Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. There, the singers quickly developed a following and signed a contract with Warner Brothers.

Warner released Peter, Paul and Mary's "Lemon Tree" as a single in early 1962. The trio then released "If I Had a Hammer", a song written in 1949 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays to protest the imprisonment of Harlem City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. under the Smith Act. "If I had a Hammer" garnered two Grammy Awards in 1962. The trio's first album, the eponymous Peter, Paul & Mary, remained in the Top 10 for ten months and in the Top 20 for two years; it sold more than two million copies. The group toured extensively and recorded numerous albums, both live and in the studio.

In June 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary released a 7" single of "Blowin' in the Wind" by the then-relatively unknown Bob Dylan, who was also managed by Grossman. "Blowin' in the Wind" sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release; by August 17, it was number two on the Billboard pop chart, with sales exceeding one million copies. Yarrow recalled that when he told Dylan he would make more than $5,000 (equivalent to $42,000 in 2019[11]) from the publishing rights, Dylan was speechless.[12] On August 28, 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary appeared on stage with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at his historic March on Washington where their performance of "Blowin' in the Wind" established it as a civil rights anthem.[13] Their version also spent weeks on Billboard's easy listening chart. By 1964 the 26-year-old Yarrow had joined the Board of the Newport Folk Festival, where he had performed as an unknown just four years earlier.

Yarrow's songwriting helped to create some of Peter, Paul and Mary's best-known songs, including "Puff, the Magic Dragon", "Day Is Done", "Light One Candle", and "The Great Mandala". As a member of the trio, he earned a 1996 Emmy nomination for the Great Performances special LifeLines Live, a highly acclaimed celebration of folk music, with their musical mentors, contemporaries, and a new generation of singer-songwriters.

Yarrow was instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival.[14] His work at Kerrville has been called his "most important achievement in this arena".[15]

Yarrow co-wrote and produced "Torn Between Two Lovers", a number one hit for Mary McGregor. He also produced three CBS TV specials based on "Puff, the Magic Dragon", which earned an Emmy nomination for him. In 1978 Yarrow organized Survival Sunday, an antinuclear benefit, and after a period of separation, he was once again joined by Stookey and Travers.

Yarrow and his daughter, Bethany Yarrow, often perform together. Together with cellist Rufus Cappadocia, they form the trio Peter, Bethany, and Rufus.[16] They released the CD Puff & Other Family Classics. In 2008, the musical special Peter, Bethany & Rufus: Spirit of Woodstock, featuring a live performance of the band, aired on public television.

Yarrow portrayed leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam in the 2015 film While We're Young.

Social activism

Yarrow has long been an activist for social and political causes. What he did was not always popular. According to The New York Times:

As their fame grew, Peter, Paul and Mary mixed music with political and social activism. In 1963, the trio marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and Washington, D.C. The three participated in countless demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. They sang at the 1969 March on Washington, which Mr. Yarrow helped to organize. Though their activism provoked a steady stream of death threats, they were never harmed. "But for years, I used to bite my fingernails on stage," [Mary] Travers says. "There you are and look like the back porch light, and stare out at 12,000 or 15,000 people. Any one of whom could have had a gun."[17]

Operation Respect

In 2000, in an effort to combat school bullying, Yarrow helped start Operation Respect,[18] a nonprofit organization that brings to children, in schools and camps, a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other's differences. The project began as a result of Yarrow and his daughter Bethany and his son Christopher having heard the song Don't Laugh at Me (written by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin) at the Kerrville Folk Festival.

In March 2008, Yarrow told Reuters:

Operation Respect has been my main and all-consuming work for the past 10 years. My perception is that the kind of bullying, humiliation that goes on in children's schools leads to high rates of depression that was virtually unknown when I was young and the high suicide rate of teenagers which we know is almost inevitably caused by bullying or mean-spiritedness. It is a reflection of the role models that young people observe on TV shows like a lot of the reality shows. It is also part and parcel of the characteristics in the adult world of America.[19]

Other activism

Yarrow's leadership in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry inspired another generation. Of the song "Light One Candle", Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann wrote:

Peter Yarrow's now famous song, which was written in 1983, became a defining song for my generation of high school and college students to become activists, to make the world a better place. I heard Peter Yarrow singing that song on the steps of the Capitol, in 1987, twenty years ago next week, during the march to free Soviet Jews. Listening to him sing, surrounded by literally thousands of like-minded individuals, I learned of my obligation to change the world; to engage in tikkun olam, repair of our broken world. And, during that incredible day, I knew that we could, indeed, change the world.[20]

In 2005, Yarrow performed in Ho Chi Minh City at a concert to benefit the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange; Yarrow pleaded with the Vietnamese for forgiveness of the United States.[21]

Yarrow serves on the board of directors of the Connecticut Hospice.[15][22]

On November 1, 2008, Yarrow performed across New York City for volunteers who worked for the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama.[23]

On October 3, 2011, Yarrow, his son, and his daughter made an appearance at Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests, playing songs such as "We Shall Not Be Moved" and a variation of "Puff the Magic Dragon".[24][25]

Personal life

Yarrow has cited Judaism as one of the roots of his liberal views.[26]

While campaigning for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Yarrow met McCarthy's niece, Mary Beth McCarthy, in Wisconsin.[27] They were married in October 1969[26] in Willmar, Minnesota. Paul Stookey wrote "Wedding Song (There Is Love)" as his gift for their wedding and first performed it at St. Mary's Church in Willmar. They had two children, but later divorced.[28]

In December 2000, Yarrow's Larrivee acoustic guitar was stolen on an airplane flight. In early 2005, fans spotted the guitar on eBay. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered it in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, and returned it to Yarrow. He did not press charges, as the person it was recovered from had not stolen it.[29]

Yarrow performed the world premiere of "The Colonoscopy Song" on the CBS early morning program The Early Show on March 9, 2010.[30]

Yarrow has also acknowledged being an alcoholic, and sought treatment for the disease. He considers himself in recovery.[31]

A longtime resident of New York City, Yarrow has also had a vacation home in Telluride, Colorado. Yarrow's son, Christopher, is a visual artist who in the late 2000s owned an emporium in Portland, Oregon, named The Monkey & The Rat.[32]

Criminal conviction and pardon

In 1970, Yarrow was convicted, and served three months in prison, for taking "improper liberties" with a 14-year-old girl who went with her 17-year-old sister to Yarrow's hotel room seeking an autograph. "Yarrow answered the door naked and made sexual advances that stopped short of intercourse." Yarrow served three months of a one-to-three-year prison sentence.[33][34][35][36][37] He apologized for the incident, saying that "It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers. I was one of them. I got nailed. I was wrong. I'm sorry for it."[33]

In 1981, Jimmy Carter granted Yarrow a presidential pardon for the crime.[33][34][35][38] Nonetheless, it has occasionally become a campaign issue for politicians he supports.[35][39][40] In 2004, Representative Martin Frost of Texas, a Democrat, canceled a fundraising appearance with the singer after his opponent ran a radio advertisement about Yarrow's offense;[35] in 2013 Republican politicians in New York State called on Democratic congressional candidate Martha Robertson to cancel a scheduled fundraiser with Yarrow.[39][41] In 2019 he was disinvited from a folk music festival when the organizers were informed of his conviction.[42]

Awards and honors

Yarrow received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award in 1982 for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace, and freedom".[43] In 1995 the Miami Jewish Federation recognized Yarrow's continual efforts by awarding its Tikkun Olam Award for his part in helping to "repair the world".[43][44]

Yarrow was awarded the Kate Wolf Memorial Award by the World Folk Music Association in 1993.[45]

In 2003 a congressional resolution recognized Yarrow's achievements and those of Operation Respect.[26][46]

Discography

Peter, Paul and Mary

Solo
  • 1972 Peter US No. 163
  • 1973 That's Enough For Me US No. 203
  • 1975 Hard Times
  • 1975 Love Songs[15]
  • 2010 The Peter Yarrow Sing-Along Special

Peter, Bethany and Rufus
  • 2008 Puff & Other Family Classics

Other Contributions
  • Jim Stanard – Color Outside The Lines (2020)
    • Vocals on songs "Home" and "Arkansas", along with Bethany Yarrow

Bibliography
  • Puff, the Magic Dragon, by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton, Eric Puybaret (illustrator), Sterling Publishing, released in August 2007, ISBN 978-1-4027-4782-3
  • The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Favorite Folk Songs, by Peter Yarrow, Terry Widener (illustrator), Sterling Publishing, released November 4, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4027-5961-1
  • The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Sleepytime Songs, by Peter Yarrow, Terry Widener (Illustrator), Sterling Publishing, released November 4, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4027-5962-8
  • Day Is Done, by Peter Yarrow, Melissa Sweet (Illustrator), Sterling Publishing, released October 2009, ISBN 978-1-4027-4806-6
  • The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Songs for Little Folks, by Peter Yarrow, Terry Widener (Illustrator), Sterling Publishing, released May 2010, ISBN 978-1-4027-5964-2

See also

References
  1. Biographical sketch from the Bernard Yarrow Papers, 1907 to 1973, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower.archives.gov; accessed December 31, 2015.
  2. Summer 2014 Deltan Zbtdigitaldeltan.com
  3. Richard Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Rowman & Littlefield: [1972] reprint 2005), p. 145.
  4. Smith, OSS: The Secret History, p. 145,
  5. Scott R. Benarde, Stars of David: Rock'n'roll's Jewish Stories (Brandeis University Press, 2008), p. 57. See also Lynn Katalin Kádár, "At War While at Peace United States Cold War Policy and the National Committee for a Free Europe, Inc.", pp. 7–69 in Lynn Katalin Kádár, editor, The Inauguration of "Organized Political Warfare": The Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe (St. Helena, California: Helena History Press, 2013).
  6. Benarde, Stars of David: Rock'n'roll's Jewish Stories, p. 58.
  7. Obituary for Silvia Tim Yarrow, The Day (New London, Connecticut), February 12, 1993.
  8. Daniel Aloi, "Peter Yarrow '59 – of Peter, Paul and Mary fame – reflects on 'Romp-n-Stomp'", Ezra Magazine 2: 1 (Fall 2009)
  9. Benarde, Stars of David:, p. 59.
  10. Grimes, William (September 16, 2009). "Mary Travers, Singer of Protest Anthems, Dies at 72". The New York Times.
  11. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  12. Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (Grove Press, 2001), p.135.
  13. A.P., "Obituary: Mary Travers, 72; Member of Folk Group Peter, Paul and Mary", The Washington Post, September 17, 2009.
  14. Rod Kennedy. "The Birth of New Folk Competitions at Kerrville" (PDF). Kerrville Folk Festival.
  15. "Peter Yarrow". Aviv Productions, Ltd.
  16. "Peter, Bethany and Rufus | Listen and Stream Free Music, Albums, New Releases, Photos, Videos" – via Myspace.
  17. Patricia Grandjean (July 31, 1994). "60's Heroes Keep On Keeping On". The New York Times.
  18. "Creating Compassionate, Safe & Respectful Environments". Operation Respect. Archived from the original on July 5, 2013. Retrieved August 15, 2013.
  19. Belinda Goldsmith (March 6, 2008). "Just A Minute With: Peter Yarrow". Reuters. Archived from the original on March 11, 2008. Retrieved April 2, 2008.
  20. Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann (November 30, 2007). "Chanukah Sermon". Union for Reform Judaism. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008.
  21. "Yarrow calls for Vietnam apology, Contactmusic.com; accessed December 31, 2015.
  22. "A Night to Remember for The Connececticut Hospice, Thanks to the Legendary Peter, Paul and Mary Trio". Archived from the original on December 10, 2008.
  23. Ryan, Stephanie L. (November 5, 2008). "Hear folk music legend Peter Yarrow at Northshire". Bennington Banner. Yarrow spent parts of several days in the final run up to the election at the Obama phone banks, singing for the workers and giving them a historical perspective on what they were doing. "In a way, this is a continuation of the march on Washington in 1963, when Peter, Paul and Mary performed," he said.
  24. "Peter Yarrow and Kyp Malone at Occupy Wall Street". The Village Voice. October 3, 2011. Retrieved September 13, 2020. This afternoon, Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary set up on a makeshift bandstand and played a set with some friends, serenading the occupiers with "Puff, the Magic Dragon", "If I Had a Hammer", and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
  25. Potter, Mitch (October 3, 2011). "Occupy Wall Street 'zombies' keep protest alive". Toronto Star. Retrieved September 13, 2020. One example: the arrival Monday of a grinning, white-haired Peter Yarrow, who mined antiquities from his Peter, Paul and Mary songbook, including the civil-rights anthem "We Shall Not Be Moved".
  26. Pat Launer (October 2006). "Lighting Ten Million Candles". San Diego Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on October 2, 2006.
  27. "ASTS 3". Peterpaulandmary.com.
  28. "Peter Yarrow". Jewish Virtual Library.
  29. People: Mel Brooks, Orlando Bloom, Peter Yarrow, International Herald Tribune, February 3, 2005
  30. "Peter Yarrow's Ode to Colonoscopies!". CBS News.
  31. Neil Scott. "Peter Yarrow Talks About His Recovery, His Music, and the Truth Behind Puff the Magic Dragon" Recovery Today Online, April 2010.
  32. Genovese, Fran (July 22, 2008). "Shopowner's serenity came after activism". The Oregonian. Portland, Oregon. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  33. Trex, Ethan, 11 notable presidential pardons, CNN, January 5, 2009. Retrieved March 3, 2013.
  34. Alex Roth (March 3, 2006), "Jet fighter, 'Jet Plane' singer forged a bond", The San Diego Union-Tribune.
  35. Tim Grieve (January 28, 2005), "Howard Dean or anybody but?" Archived March 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Salon.
  36. Alan M. Dershowitz (December 15, 1991), "Winning Was Everything", The New York Times.
  37. "Entertainment". ABC News.
  38. Jurist Legal Intelligence, Presidential Pardons, University of Pittsburgh Law School Archived November 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  39. Dara Levy (September 17, 2013). "Fundraiser for Martha Robertson '75 Causes Controversy". The Cornell Daily Sun. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved September 28, 2013.
  40. Zremski, Jerry (September 12, 2013). "Reed's opponent under fire for booking Yarrow at fundraiser". The Buffalo News. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
  41. "Stop the political roller coaster". Star-Gazette. Elmira, N.Y. September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
  42. Wallace, Danielle (July 4, 2019). "Singer's 'indecent liberties' with 14-year-old girl – pardoned by Jimmy Carter – get him nixed from folk music festival". Fox News.
  43. "Bio at peterpaulandmary.com". Archived from the original on December 25, 2007.
  44. Where Are They Now? – Peter, Paul and Mary Archived April 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine bmusic Newsletter No. 86, September 21–27, 2003
  45. Noble, Richard E. (2009). Number #1 : the story of the original Highwaymen. Denver: Outskirts Press. pp. 265–267. ISBN 9781432738099. OCLC 426388468.
  46. "About the Honorees". National Music Council of the United States. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2013.
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