Peter Yarrow dead: Puff the Magic Dragon co-writer from trio Peter, Paul & Mary dies aged 86 after bladder cancer battle
PETER Yarrow, the singer-songwriter best known as one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, has tragically died aged 86.
The legend – who also co-wrote the group’s world famous tune Puff the Magic Dragon – died Tuesday in New York, his publicist said.
Yarrow had been battling bladder cancer for the past four years.
The legend’s heartbroken daughter said in a statement: “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life.
“The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.”
Born May 31, 1938, in New York, Yarrow was raised in an upper middle class family he said placed high value on art and scholarship.
He took violin lessons as a child, later switching to guitar as he came to embrace the work of such folk-music icons as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
Upon graduating from Cornell University in 1959, he returned to New York, where he worked as a struggling musician until connecting with his future bandmates Stookey and Travers.
Although his degree was in psychology, he had found his true calling in folk music at Cornell when he worked as a teaching assistant for a class in American folklore his senior year.
Over the years, Yarrow continued to write and co-write songs, including the 1976 hit Torn Between Two Lovers for Mary MacGregor.
He received an Emmy nomination in 1979 for the animated film Puff the Magic Dragon.
Later songs include the civil rights anthem No Easy Walk to Freedom, co-written with Margery Tabankin, and Light One Candle, calling for peace in Lebanon.
During an incredible run of success spanning the 1960s, Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers released six Billboard Top 10 singles, two No. 1 albums and won five Grammys.
They also brought early exposure to Bob Dylan by turning two of his songs, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right and Blowin’ in the Wind, into Billboard Top 10 hits.
They performed Blowin in the Wind at the 1963 March on Washington at which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech.
After an eight-year hiatus to pursue solo careers, the trio reunited in 1978 for a Survival Sunday, an anti-nuclear-power concert that Yarrow had organized in Los Angeles.
They would remain together until Travers’ death in 2009.
Upon her passing, Yarrow and Stookey continued to perform both separately and together.
In addition to his ex-wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, Christopher, and a granddaughter, Valentina.