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- The Road to Shambhala
Yarrow had reportedly been battling bladder cancer for several years. Recently, his children, Bethany and Christopher Yarrow, set up a “living tribute” for their father on , asking fans, friends, and others to submit short messages, photos, or videos in Yarrow’s honor. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and folk singer Mary Chapin Carpenter were among those who contributed tributes.
With their distinctive three-part harmonies, Peter, Paul and Mary — with Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers — became one of the to emerge out of the Greenwich Village folk scene. The group won five Grammys, released two Number One albums, and scored six Top 10 hits, including a 1962 rendition of Pete Seeger and Lee Hays’ “If I Had a Hammer,” a 1963 version of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and a 1969 take on John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which reached Number One.
Born May 31, 1938, Yarrow was raised in Manhattan and attended Cornell, where he first began singing folk songs and graduated with a degree in psychology. Yarrow, who first played violin before switching to guitar, also taught a course in folk at Cornell.
“That’s the real reason I entered the folk field, because in that class I saw the transformational power folk music had,” he “It was a very, very backward time in our country, and certainly on the Ivy League campuses. When the kids at the college took this course, their humanity emerged, and it was palatable and clear. I was in tune with the fact that the world was going to go through a big change and that folk music was going to become an important part of it. It became the soundtrack of that change.”
As part of the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, he met Albert Grossman, the enigmatic manager and festival co-organizer. Grossman began working with Yarrow, who started singing in Greenwich Village clubs (especially the Cafe Wha?), performed at the 1960 Newport festival, and was included in a CBS News special on folk music. In 1961, Grossman approached Yarrow with the idea of putting together a folk trio modeled on the Weavers but for a new, Sixties generation.
