Hangin' Out In 100b

Update: I’m bumping up this post from last week, which was just a little nod to a group I’ve loved for as long as I can remember, in tribute to Mary Travers, who died yesterday at the age of 72. The New York Times has a very nice obituary here and there’s not much I can add to it except to say that I was terribly saddened by the news. As I mentioned below, bedtime lullabies were my introduction to Peter, Paul and Mary, and I’ve listened to them ever since. As I got older, I gravitated towards more grown-up songs like “If I Had My Way” and their version of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”, but I’ve never not loved their music. As much as they are amazing as a whole, Mary Travers’ voice was the one that you really heard, clear and strong, and – simply put – it’s a damn shame that we’ve lost that.

Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1962 self-titled debut album is a 60s folk classic. Actually, just a classic. Something that could almost for sure never happen today, this album stayed in the Billboard Top One Hundred for over three years. Plus, “If I Had A Hammer”, the album’s lead single, won Grammys in both folk and pop categories. The album also had two singles in the Billboard Pop Chart, one in the top 10. And despite being a basically manufactured band à la The Monkees, the trio doesn’t seem to have had to deal with any accusations of not being ‘real’ musicians, or at least not that I’ve ever heard about. Their voices are all the proof anyone would’ve needed – I’m not sure even Gram and Emmylou sounded this great together.

It’s a shame that the trio is best known now for a lighter, children-friendly sound, most obviously heard on “Puff The Magic Dragon”, probably my least favorite Peter, Paul and Mary song. (Though I do have fond memories of my mother singing it to me as a little girl, so I guess “Puff … ” does have its merits after all.) When they got going, they could sound positively fierce. Just listen to “If I Had My Way” below, and see if it doesn’t get your foot stomping by the end.