Peter Yarrow, singer and musician of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died aged 86

The group Peter, Paul and Mary is famous in France for its song “500 Miles”, which became “I hear the train whistle” by Richard Anthony.

With his acolytes from the famous folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, he had enjoyed success in the midst of the protest movement in the 1960s in the United States: the American musician Peter Yarrow died on Tuesday January 7, his agent announced to the AFP. The 86-year-old artist died in New York from bladder cancer against which he had been fighting for four years. Quoted in a press release, his daughter Bethany added: “Our indomitable dragon is tired and has begun the final chapter of its magnificent existence.”

“The world knows Peter Yarrow as an iconic folk activist, but the man behind the legend is everything generous, creative, passionate, playful and wise as his songs show.”she greeted.

Peter Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938 in Manhattan to a family of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, before studying painting and turning to guitar and singing while a student at Cornell University. He burst onto the folk scene in New York in 1961 alongside Mary Travers – who died in 2009 at age 72 of leukemia – and Noel “Paul” Stookey. The year when the very young Bob Dylan arrived in the Greenwich Village district of Manhattan.

It was during this decade that the trio found success, riding the pacifist, anti-racist and progressive wave and the movement against the Vietnam War. The group’s first album in 1962, mixing folk roots and more modern sound, sold two million copies. Their interpretation of Blowin’ in the Windcomposed shortly before by Bob Dylan, punctuated the famous pacifist demonstration in Washington led by Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963.

Peter Yarrow was also accused of making advances towards a 14-year-old girl who came to his dressing room to get an autograph. He served three months in prison after pleading guilty to “indecency”. Pardoned by President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), he had to abandon a festival in New York in 2019 under pressure from the #MeToo movement, before presenting his “apologies” and expressing his “sorrow”.

The trio has won five Grammy Awards, including two for If I Had a Hammer by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. The three artists separated in 1970 before reforming at intervals between 1978 and the death of Mary Travers. The group Peter, Paul and Mary is known in France for several adaptations, including the song 500 Miles become I hear the train whistle by Richard Anthony.