Peter Yarrow (born May 31, 1938) is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote (with Leonard Lipton) one of the group's most famous songs, Puff, the Magic Dragon. He is also a political activist, lending his support to causes ranging from opposition to the Vietnam war to the creation of Operation Respect.
Pete Yarrow was born in New York City, New York. He graduated from New York City's High School of Music and Art, now called LaGuardia High School. His singing career began after graduating from Cornell University, in 1959.[1] Soon, Yarrow met Noel "Paul" Stookey and Mary Travers in New York City's Greenwich Village, center of the mid-20th century American folk music revival. By 1962, Warner Bros. Records released the trio's first album, the eponymous Peter, Paul & Mary. The album remained in the Top Ten for ten months, in the Top Twenty for two years, and sold more than two million copies. The group has toured extensively and recorded numerous albums, both live and in the studio. In October of 1969, Yarrow married Mary Beth McCarthy. He has two adult children. In 2000, he founded Operation Respect.
On behalf of Operation Respect, Yarrow has appeared, pro bono, in areas as diverse as Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bermuda, Croatia, South Africa, Egypt, Argentina, and Canada. In all, the program has been presented to many educational leaders and more than 10 million children. In some form, the project has reached nearly 1/3 of all elementary and middle schools in America, at least 20,000 schools, in all.
In 2003, a Congressional resolution recognized the Yarrow's achievements and those of Operation Respect. The Congressional Caucus gave him a standing ovation.[2] In August 2006, he met with representatives of 35 organizations, including the League of Cities, the Academy of Education, Americans for the Arts, and Newspapers in Education, to unite them in a commitment to “...shifting the American educational paradigm, to educating the whole child, not just in academics, but in character, heart, social-emotional development. As we Jews say, `let him be a mensch first; everything else will work out'".
Yarrow has appeared as a performer on 61 various albums, including his daughter Bethany's 2003 CD, Rock Island.
Biography
Music and career
Yarrow began singing with Mary Travers in December 1960; when (Noel) Paul Stookey joined them, they chose the name "Peter, Paul and Mary" for their folk trio.
Yarrow's songwriting helped create some of Peter, Paul & Mary's most famous songs, including Puff the Magic Dragon, Day is Done, Light One Candle, and The Great Mandala. As a member of that folk music 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.[3] His work at Kerrville has been called his "most important achievement in this arena."[4]
He co-wrote 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 him an Emmy nomination. In 1978, Yarrow organized Survival Sunday, an anti-nuclear benefit, and after a period of separation, was once again joined by Stookey and Travers.[5]
Yarrow and his daughter Bethany Yarrow, who is also a musician, often perform together. Together with cellist Rufus Cappadocia, they form the trio Peter, Bethany and Rufus.[6] They have recently released the 11-song CD Puff & Other Family Classics.
In Spring 2008, public television stations around the country aired the musical special, Peter, Bethany & Rufus: Spirit of Woodstock. It featured 17 songs, performed before a live audience at the Bearsville Theatre.
Social activism
Yarrow has long been an activist for social and political causes. It wasn't 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 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, and Washington DC. The three participated in countless demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. And 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, looking like the back porch light, staring out at 12,000 or 15,000 people. Any one of whom could have had a gun."[7]
Yarrow produced and coordinated many events as a part of the anti-Vietnam War movement, including the Winter and Summer Festival for Peace at Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium respectively. These events raised funds for anti-war political candidates and featured dozens of folk, rock, jazz and blues stars such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Tom Paxton, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Steppenwolf. They were the first major concerts at such venues designed solely for such a purpose. The 1969 anti-war March on Washington, a.k.a. "The National Mobilization to End the War", in which some half-million people participated was the largest of these efforts. 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.[8]
Yarrow's involvement in politics continued throughout the decades. He also had a variety of contacts with politicians; he performed at John Kerry's wedding.[9]
His leadership in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry inspired another generation. Of the anthem Don't Let the Light Go Out, Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann has written
Peter Yarrow’s now famous song, 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 sing 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.[10]
Yarrow received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award in 1982, for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace and freedom."[11] In 1995, the Miami Jewish Federation recognized Yarrow’s continual efforts by awarding him its Tikkun Olam Award for his part in helping to "repair the world".[11][12]
Yarrow serves on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Hospice.[4][13]
In New York City on November 1, 2008 Yarrow performed across the city for volunteers working for The Presidential Campaign of Senator Barack Obama.
Operation Respect
In an effort to combat school violence, Yarrow started Operation Respect, which brings children in schools and camps a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other's differences.[14] Founded in the year 2000 by Yarrow, Operation Respect is a non-profit organization designed to promote civility and conflict resolution into the curriculum of U.S. schools on a nationwide basis. 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. Operation Respect later quoted Yarrow as saying
"Since I have lived a life of social and political advocacy through music, one in which I had seen songs like Blowin' In the Wind If I Had a Hammer, and We Shall Overcome become anthems that moved generations and helped solidify their commitment to efforts like the Civil Rights Movement and the Peace Movement, I knew I had just discovered a song that could become an anthem of a movement to help children find their common sensitivity to the painful effects of disrespect, intolerance, ridicule, and bullying."[15]
Operation Respect's stated mission reads as follows: "To assure each child and youth a respectful, safe and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence."[16]
The DLAM Programs
Operation Respect developed the Don't Laugh at Me (DLAM) programs, one for grades 2-5, another for grades 6-8 and a third for summer camps and after-school programs. These programs make use of music and video along with curriculum guides based on highly regarded conflict resolution curricula developed by the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) of Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR). Because of the generosity of its supporters, Operation Respect is able to disseminate the DLAM programs free of charge. More than 145,000 copies of the curriculum have been distributed to educators since Operation Respect began. Operation Respect also offers assembly programs and professional development workshops designed to provide educators with the tools for effective implementation.
In 2003, a resolution in Congress recognized the achievements of Peter Yarrow and Operation Respect.[14]
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."[17]
Personal life
Peter Yarrow's parents were Jewish, born in Ukraine; the family name was changed from Yaroshevitz to Yarrow after immigrating to Providence, Rhode Island.[14] Yarrow has cited Judaism as one of the roots of his liberal views.[14]
Yarrow received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Cornell University in 1959.
While campaigning for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Yarrow met McCarthy's niece, Mary Beth McCarthy, in Wisconsin.[18] They were married in October 1969.[14]
In 1970, Yarrow was convicted of, and served three months in prison for, taking "improper liberties" with a 14-year-old female fan. He has since apologized for the incident: "In that time, it was common practice, unfortunately –– the whole groupie thing."[19][20][21] President Carter later granted him clemency for the incident.[22]
In December 2000, Yarrow's Larrivee acoustic guitar was stolen while on an airplane flight. In early 2005, the guitar was spotted by fans on eBay. The guitar was recovered in Sunrise, Florida, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and returned to Yarrow. He did not press charges.[23]
Peter Yarrow's son, Christopher, is a visual artist who owns The Monkey & The Rat[24] in Portland, Oregon.
Discography
Peter, Paul and Mary
Solo
- 1972 Peter
- 1973 That's Enough For Me
- 1975 Hard Times
- 1975 Love Song[4]
Peter, Bethany and Rufus
- 2008 Puff & Other Family Classics
Bibliography
- Puff, the Magic Dragon, by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton, Eric Puybaret (illustrator), Sterling, 2007, ISBN 978-1402747823
- The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Favorite Folk Songs, by Peter Yarrow, Terry Widener (illustrator), Sterling, to be released November 4 2008, ISBN 978-1402759611
- The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Sleepytime Songs, by Peter Yarrow, Terry Widener (Illustrator), Sterling, to be released November 4 2008, ISBN 978-1402759628
References
- ^ Cornell University Grammy Award Winners
- ^ Lighting Ten Million Candles, "San Diego Jewish Journal", Pat Launer, 2006
- ^ The Birth of New Folk Competitions at KerrvillePDF (75.5 KB), by Rod Kennedy
- ^ a b c Peter Yarrow - Aviv Productions, Ltd
- ^ Answers.com article about Peter Yarrow
- ^ Myspace: Peter, Bethany and Rufus
- ^ 60's Heroes Keep On Keeping On, by Patricia Grandjean, The New York Times, 31 July 1994
- ^ "Yarrow calls for Vietnam apology, contactmusic.com
- ^ At the center of power, seeking the summit, by John Aloysius Farrell, Boston Globe, 21 June 2003
- ^ Chanukah Sermon, by Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann, 30 November 2007
- ^ a b Bio at peterpaulandmary.com
- ^ Where Are They Now? - Peter, Paul and Mary bmusic Newsletter No.86, September 21-27 2003
- ^ A Night to Remember for The Connececticut Hospice, Thanks to the Legendary Peter, Paul, and Mary Trio
- ^ a b c d e Lighting Ten Million Candles, by Pat Launer, San Diego Archive, October 2006
- ^ About Us - History - Creating Compassionate, Safe, Respectful Environments - Operation Respect
- ^ Operation Respect: Mission
- ^ "Just A Minute With: Peter Yarrow" by Belinda Goldsmith, Reuters, 6 March 2008
- ^ Peter, Paul, & Mary History, page 3
- ^ Winning Was Everything, by Alan M. Dershowitz, December 15, 1991, New York Times
- ^ "Jet fighter, 'Jet Plane' singer forged a bond", Alex Roth, San Diego Union-Tribune, March 3, 2006
- ^ "Howard Dean or anybody but?" by Tim Grieve, Salon, January 28, 2005
- ^ Jurist Legal Intelligence, Presidential Pardons, University of Pittsburgh Law School
- ^ People: Mel Brooks, Orlando Bloom, Peter Yarrow, International Herald Tribune, 3 February 2005
- ^ The Monkey & The Rat website
External links
