Peter Yarrow, Founder of Peter, Paul and Mary, and Writer of “Puff The Magic Dragon” Passes Away at 86

Peter Yarrow, a renowned folk musician who gained immense popularity as a member of the group Peter, Paul, and Mary, has passed away at the age of 86, as reported by the Associated Press.

Born in New York City in 1938, Yarrow rose to prominence as one of the leading musicians from the vibrant Greenwich Village folk music scene of the early 1960s, following his graduation from Cornell University. Albert Grossman, a prominent music manager, brought together Yarrow, Mary Travers, and Noel “Paul” Stookey to establish Peter, Paul, and Mary. The trio made a significant impact on the folk music movement with their self-titled debut album released in 1962, which swiftly reached the top spot on the Billboard charts, propelled by their cover of the Pete Seeger classic “If I Had A Hammer.” Their rendition of the song earned them two Grammy Awards.

During the early 1960s, Peter, Paul, and Mary were associated with other musicians such as Joan Baez, Dave von Ronk, and Bob Dylan. The trio’s decision to cover Bob Dylan’s song “Blowin’ In The Wind” from his album Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963 played a pivotal role in Dylan’s journey to mainstream success. The rendition of “Blowin’ In The Wind” by Peter, Paul, and Mary rapidly climbed to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with over a million copies sold by August of the same year. Their performance of this song at the historic March on Washington further solidified its place as a significant anthem of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Dylan, while appreciative that the cover expanded the reach of his music to millions and millions of people worldwide (and made him more money than he had ever seen up to that point), slagged the band in private; Yarrow is featured as an antagonistic sellout foil for Dylan’s prickly artistic genius in James Mangold’s 2024 Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, both during their shared time performing in the coffeehouses of the West Village and during the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan infamously “went electric.” (Footage of Peter, Paul, and Mary from this time can be seen in Murray Lerner’s 1967 documentary, Festival!)

Yarrow’s best known original composition is almost certainly “Puff The Magic Dragon,” a devastating song about childish innocence lost. It’s been covered by hundreds of artists, and is well known as one of the most anthemic folk songs ever recorded. Yarrow always denied that the song was a thinly veiled ode to the pleasures of smoking reefer, but that didn’t stop Ben Stiller’s Gregory Focker in Meet The Parents from trying to bond with his future father-in-law by running with that theory. (Bob De Niro did NOT agree.)

Yarrow was convicted of taking “improper liberties” with a female minor in 1970, and served three months in prison; Yarrow was given a presidential pardon the late Jimmy Carter in 1981.

Following that unfortunate incident, Peter, Paul, and Mary went on the road and toured pretty continuously up until Mary Travers death in 2009; the trio’s magical harmonies were captured in a 1986 special Peter, Paul, and Mary: The 25th Anniversary Concert, which is probably still airing on a PBS station somewhere across these great United States. The band earned 5 Grammy Awards among 16 nominations across its 40+ year career.

According to his publicist, Yarrow died in his Upper West Side home on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 as a result of the bladder cancer he had been fighting for the past four years. Yarrow was 84 at the time of his death.