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Peter, Paul and Mary’s performance at a massive 1971 peace march in Washington was more ragged than their generally smooth concert work, but it still resonated with the emotional power their listeners always expected.

I just re-watched the video of  that performance, thanks to the link in R.P. Singletary’s tribute to Mary Travers, who died Sept. 16 at the age of 72. I had traveled to Washington from North Carolina for the ’71 rally and was, no doubt, among the scruffier folks in the throng. It was the second time I had heard PP&M at a political demonstration, the 12th time I had seen them overall.

Their music rang clearly through the sound track of my youth. From the vantage point of four decades and more, the appeal of those performances might seem hard to fathom. But I remember them clearly.

More importantly, I remember their impact on my view of the world.

Especially early on, I suspect one factor that added to the attraction of Peter, Paul and Mary was their sophistication. These were young adults from New York, who hung out in coffee houses in Greenwich Village. They actually knew beatniks! After a concert in my city, the most sophisticated place we could hang out was Shakey’s Pizza. I liked PP&M even more when, one night after a show, they showed up at our Shakey’s, too.

But what I liked best was the way they communicated their sense of values. At my favorite concert in the ’60s, the whole audience sat on the floor and sang along on “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “The Times They Are A’Changing .” Were we young and naive? Absolutely. Not your idea of a good time? I can understand. But if music can make you a better person, those concerts somehow did. At least, I think they did in my case. Most of PP&M’s songs were not political. But I never left one of their shows without feeling a surge of idealism. Scoff if you wish, but I still think idealism — especially the idealism of the young — is a very good thing.

I lived in a smallish city in the West the first several times I heard Peter, Paul and Mary, but I had been born in the deep South and was a thoroughgoing son of the region of my birth. While hardly the lone factor, PP&M helped persuade me to become an all-out supporter of the civil rights movement. Today, I thank them for that.

As fashions changed, PP&M and “folk” music gave way to fresher faces on the musical scene. The last couple of times I saw them, they seemed more a nostalgia act than the energetic young people I first recalled.

To their great credit, however, their idealism never waned. Mary Travers’ never did, for sure.

I spoke with Mary, who was herself born in the American South, only once, an interview for a newspaper article. Her conversational style was genuine, friendly and informal. Her answers to questions were unrehearsed. I found her funny. When I mentioned that I subscribed to Sing Out, the folk music magazine, she interrupted me: “You read Sing Out?” she said. “Will you marry me?” I also found her fiery in her political views. Mary Travers, I gathered, did not suffer fools gladly.

When I first heard her sing, civil rights was the dominant social issue in our country. Today, the same could be said of universal health care. Both those issues go to the heart of what we think the United States of America should be all about.

The songs Mary, Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey sang to rally my generation to a greater vision of our nation are still relevant today. I just wish Mary could still be here to sing them.

Peter, Paul and Mary Web site: http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/

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7 Responses to “Still relevant to times that are a’changing”

1. Janet Ward says:

   September 17, 2009 at 9:42 pm

   How lucky you were to talk to her. I loved her and her music. I saw PP&M twice. And, yes, most of their music was not political; but the stuff that was, oh, my, it was so wonderful. Today, I heard of her death on NPR and I couldn’t stop crying on my way to work. Hers was the voice of my childhood.

   I loved her and I loved them.

   Reply
2. Terri Evans says:

   September 17, 2009 at 9:53 pm

   I do not scoff. I long for their idealism. We still need her voice. And yours.

   Reply
3. Hank says:

   September 18, 2009 at 7:32 am

   When we think back to what motivated us, Peter, Paul & Mary are there. Our views were shaped in all sorts of ways, of course. Wasn’t it Theodore Roszak (The Making of a Counter Culture) who attributed the anti-authority attitudes of our generation to Mad magazine, among other influences? But you couldn’t really talk about that in good company. To Keith’s astute point, it was the sophistication and even erudition of Peter, Paul & Mary that helped lift and legitimize those attitudes. So I can’t and won’t scoff at the idealism, and would like agreement from others not to scoff at the first-love heartbreak emotions and tears evoked by Leaving on a Jet Plane.

   Reply
4. Ralph Patrick says:

   September 18, 2009 at 3:11 pm

   On the day after our wedding in 1963, my wife and I went to the nearest record store and spent about all the money we had on two albums. One was PP&M’s first album. ‘Nuf said.

   Reply
5. C Smith says:

   September 18, 2009 at 6:33 pm

   Keith in no way am I desecrating the memory of Mary with my trunk full of albums by PP&M, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, etc. In other words my life included those turmoil times and these entertainers were able to put our problems in word and song. Your words “Still relevant” in your headline brought the question to me “would we be called racist if our President then had been a black man?”

   Reply
6. ariel harris says:

   September 18, 2009 at 8:52 pm

   i agree with terri, so many years later..we still need their voices..and more than ever we need truthful idealism…not an oxymoron..
   i feel in mourning…i sat with my kids today as maggie put on ppm…and i was transported to that time where we thought we could…where are we now?
   thank you keith

   Reply
7. Cliff Green says:

   September 18, 2009 at 9:59 pm

   We arrived at where Mary Travers dreamed we would someday be last November. Did you see those teabaggers in DC last week? Not everyone listened to what was blowin’ in the wind. God bless ‘em; they lost so badly.

   Reply

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