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RIP: Mary Travers, 1936 - 2009

By revere on September 17, 2009.

It's been a hard year or two. First Miriam Makeba. Then Odetta. Now we've lost another one, Mary Travers, the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary. Mary died Wednesday of leukemia in Connecticut. Even before Mary, Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow formed one of the iconic sixties folk groups in 1961, Mary sang back up for Pete Seeger. And for half a century, Peter, Paul and Mary we're there when we needed them. Every major demonstration or event. Always. They were there.

Political songs were a mainstay but so were love songs and children's songs. So here's Mary, in later years, singing one of the group's signature love songs, John Denver's Leavin' on a Jet Plane:

Mary, you never let us down. I hate to see you go.

Tags
music
personal
Politics

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A sad day indeed.
Resolve to teach our children, and our children's children, the songs....and the reasons for the songs.

From the time I was old enough to understand the lyrics in the songs I heard, PP&M sang those lyrics. I still, to this day, sing her version of "Tiny Sparrow" when I'm alone (it'd be an act of terrorism for me to sing in public):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv-tUWsPXdc

Thanks for posting this tribute.

Just think what might have happened if Peter, Paul & Mary had hewn their musical talents even more strongly to the cause of monist materialism!