\n<\/p>\n
Peter Yarrow, whose caring and righteous vocals for the trio Peter, Paul and Mary helped establish them as one of the most popular folk acts of the 1960s, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 86.<\/p>\n
Ken Sunshine, his publicist, said the cause was bladder cancer, for which Mr. Yarrow had been treated for four years.<\/p>\n
On many of the trio\u2019s recordings they split the vocal parts equally, braiding Mr. Yarrow\u2019s precise tenor around Noel Paul Stookey\u2019s gentle baritone and Mary Travers\u2019s warm contralto. But Mr. Yarrow also had some prominent lead vocals as well, fronting such well-known group recordings as \u201cPuff the Magic Dragon,\u201d \u201cDay Is Done\u201d and \u201cThe Great Mandala,\u201d all of which he either wrote or co-wrote. \u201cPuff\u201d became a No. 2 Billboard hit, while \u201cDay Is Done\u201d grazed the Top 20.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Yarrow wrote many other songs recorded by the group, often in collaboration with Mr. Stookey, the last surviving member of the group (Ms. Travers died<\/a> in 2009 at 72).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In their peak years, Peter, Paul and Mary reached the Billboard Top 40 12 times; six of those songs made it onto the Top 10, including one, their cover of John Denver\u2019s \u201cLeavin\u2019 on a Jet Plane,\u201d that reached No. 1. They racked up five Billboard Top 10 albums and twice topped the magazine\u2019s album chart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Like many folk groups of the day, Peter, Paul and Mary were as well known for their progressive politics as for their music. In August 1963, they took part in the March on Washington, the site of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech. Performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, they sang Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind,\u201d which they had turned into a Top Five Billboard hit that month; their Washington performance helped establish it as a civil rights anthem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The trio also recorded songs and gave concerts supporting the liberal presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. Mr. Yarrow\u2019s lyrics often emphasized the group\u2019s political commitment: \u201cThe Great Mandala,\u201d released in 1967, told the tale of a war protester on a hunger strike; \u201cDay Is Done\u201d (1969), addressed to his son, suggests that the coming generation might create a more just world.<\/p>\n \u201cDay Is Done\u201d and \u201cPuff the Magic Dragon,\u201d which both featured simple singalong choruses and willfully innocent points of view, doubled as children\u2019s songs. Decades later, Mr. Yarrow turned each of them into an illustrated children\u2019s book. \u201cPuff\u201d also inspired an animated TV special in 1978 that was popular enough to spawn two sequels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Peter Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938, in Manhattan to Bernard and Vera (Burtakoff) Yarrow, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His father, a lawyer, was an assistant district attorney in New York under Thomas E. Dewey. He later became a vice president of the C.I.A.-funded organization Radio Free Europe.<\/p>\n Mr. Yarrow\u2019s parents divorced when he was 5. His father later converted to Protestantism, but Mr. Yarrow considered Jewish teachings a major inspiration in his life.<\/p>\n He studied painting at the High School of Music and Art (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts) in Manhattan. During his college years at Cornell, he began singing and playing guitar after attending a course in American folk literature taught by the folklorist and historian Harold William Thompson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After graduating, Mr. Yarrow moved to New York City and became a performer on the fruitful Greenwich Village folk scene. \u201cI went with the idea that I want to be involved in music that creates community,\u201d he told the music magazine Rebeat in 2015 \u2014 music, he added, \u201cthat reaches people\u2019s hearts and mobilizes people for a more humane society.\u201d<\/p>\n His success in the Village led to an invitation to appear on a CBS television special, \u201cFolk Sound USA,\u201d in 1960. It also earned him a chance to play the Newport Folk Festival, where he met Albert Grossman, a founder of the festival and the manager of the singer Odetta.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Grossman wanted to create a new group that would expand and update the formula of the Weavers, a folk harmony group consisting of a woman and three men (one of them Pete Seeger), which enjoyed significant success in the 1950s. He paired Mr. Yarrow with Ms. Travers, who had appeared in Village clubs and sung several times with Mr. Seeger. The duo became a trio when, at Ms. Travers\u2019s suggestion, they added Noel Paul Stookey, with whom she had performed at a local club. Using Mr. Stookey\u2019s middle name, they settled on their catchy biblical moniker.<\/p>\n The trio presented a compelling visual image: The two men, wearing dark ties, beatnik goatees and serious expressions, flanked Ms. Travers, whose blond hair framed noble cheekbones. Mr. Grossman booked them for a run at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street, and a buzz was created. In 1961, the group signed with Warner Bros. Records, which issued their debut album, called simply \u201cPeter, Paul and Mary,\u201d the following May.<\/p>\n Mr. Yarrow sang lead on the group\u2019s first single, \u201cLemon Tree,\u201d based on a Brazilian folk tune, which reached the Billboard Top 40. The full album rose to No. 1 after their second single, \u201cIf I Had a Hammer,\u201d written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of the Weavers, became a Top 10 hit and won two Grammy Awards. The album stayed in the Top 20 for two years and sold more than two million copies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The group\u2019s follow-up, \u201cMovin\u2019,\u201d released in early 1963, featured \u201cPuff the Magic Dragon,\u201d whose lyrics were based on a poem that a friend of Mr. Yarrow\u2019s, Lenny Lipton, had written when he was 19, inspired by an earlier poem by Ogden Nash titled \u201cThe Tale of Custard the Dragon.\u201d Speculation later arose that the song referred to smoking marijuana, an interpretation Mr. Yarrow strongly denied.<\/p>\n In June 1963, the trio released their cover of \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind.\u201d (Bob Dylan was another client of Mr. Grossman\u2019s.) It sold an estimated 300,000 copies in its first week. By mid-August it had hit No. 2; it went on to sell more than a million copies. Their version of another Dylan song, \u201cDon\u2019t Think Twice, It\u2019s All Right,\u201d broke the Billboard Top 10, boosting the writer\u2019s own album \u201cThe Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan\u201d into the Top 30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1964, Mr. Yarrow joined the board of the Newport Folk Festival. In 1970, he conceived the New Folks Concert at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, which became an annual event. The year before, he had helped organize the National Mobilization to End the War, an anti-Vietnam War protest in Washington attended by an estimated half million people.<\/p>\n Peter, Paul and Mary had the biggest hit of their career in 1970 when \u201cLeavin\u2019 on a Jet Plane,\u201d featuring Ms. Travers\u2019s yearning contralto, reached No. 1. But mere months later, they announced their split.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n They broke up in part to pursue solo careers, but also because Mr. Yarrow had been accused of making sexual advances toward a 14-year-old girl who had come to his dressing room with her 17-year-old sister seeking an autograph in 1969. He served three months of a one-to-three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking \u201cindecent liberties\u201d with the girl.<\/p>\n In 1981, Mr. Yarrow received a presidential pardon from Jimmy Carter, though the case continued to be an issue for many years during election campaigns for politicians whom Mr. Yarrow supported.<\/p>\n