Peter Yarrow of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 86

Peter Yarrow wrote or co-wrote many of the group's hits.
Peter Yarrow: The singer, one-third of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died Jan. 7. He was 86. (Al Pereira/Getty Images)

Peter Yarrow, one-third of the 1960s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, died Tuesday in New York City. He was 86.

Yarrow died at his home in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, The New York Times reported.

His death was confirmed by his publicist, Ken Sunshine, according to the newspaper. Yarrow had been battling bladder cancer for the past four years.

Yarrow joined Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to form distinctive three-part harmonies and become one of the most successful acts to come out of Greenwich Village, Rolling Stone reported.

The trio won five Grammy Awards, had two No. 1 albums and had six top-10 hits on the Billboard charts, according to the magazine.

Yarrow either wrote or co-wrote hits such as “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Day Is Done” and “The Great Mandala,” the Times reported.

The group scored a top-10 hit with their 1962 rendition of Pete Seeger and Lee Hays’ “If I Had a Hammer” and a 1963 version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Their 1969 version of the John Denver-penned doing, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, Rolling Stone reported.

Peter, Paul and Mary reached the Billboard Top 40 12 times and had five top-10 albums on the Billboard charts, according to the Times.

The trio signed with Warner Bros. Records and achieved success quickly with their first singles, “Lemon Tree” (where Yarrow took the lead vocal) and “If I Had a Hammer” and won two Grammy Awards in 1962, Variety reported. Their cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” released in June 1963, was performed by the trio at the historic, March on Washington, the entertainment news website reported.

Travers died in 2009 at the age of 72; Stookey is the remaining survivor of the group.

Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938, and was raised in Manhattan, according to Rolling Stone. He attended Cornell University, where he first began singing folk songs while pursuing a degree in psychology.

In 1969, Yarrow was accused of making sexual advances toward a 14-year-old girl who had visited his dressing room with her 17-year-old sister seeking an autograph, the Times reported.

He served three months of a one-to-three-year prison term after pleading guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with the teen, according to the newspaper.

“It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers,” Yarrow once said, according to Rolling Stone. “I was one of them. I got nailed. I was wrong. I’m sorry for it.”

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