Wednesday, September 16, 2009

RIP, Mary Travers

September 16, 2009, 9:18 pm

Mary Travers Of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies

DESCRIPTIONUnited Press International Mary Travers singing with Peter, Paul and Mary in 1978. Paul Stookey is to the left and Peter Yarrow to the right.

Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died Wednesday night in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and had lived in Redding, Conn.

The cause was cancer, said her spokeswoman, Heather Lylis.

Ms. Travers brought a powerful voice and an unfeigned urgency to music that resonated with mainstream listeners. With her straight blond hair and willowy figure and two bearded guitar players by her side, she looked exactly like what she was, a Greenwich Villager straight from the clubs and the coffee houses that nourished the folk-music revival.

“She was obviously the sex appeal of that group, and that group was the sex appeal of the movement,” said Elijah Wald, a folk-blues musician and a historian of popular music.

A full obituary will be coming soon.



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