Peter Yarrow (born in New York City on 31 May 1938 ; died 7 January 2025) was an American singer remembered for co-founding the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul & Mary and for co-writing (with Leonard Lipton) one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon". Yarrow was awarded the Kate Wolf Memorial Award by the World Folk Music Association in 1993. He was also a political activist, lending his support to causes ranging from opposition to the Vietnam war to the creation of Operation Respect.
Read more on Last.fm …read full bio
Peter Yarrow (born in New York City on 31 May 1938 ; died 7 January 2025) was an American singer remembered for co-founding the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul & Mary and for co-writing (with Leonard Lipton) one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon". Yarrow was awarded the Kate Wolf Memorial Award by the World Folk Music Association in 1993. He was also a political activist, lending his support to causes ranging from opposition to the Vietnam war to the creation of Operation Respect.
Yarrow graduated from New York City's High School of Music and Art, now called LaGuardia High School. His singing career began after graduating from Cornell University, in 1959. Soon, Yarrow met Noel "Paul" Stookey and Mary Travers in New York City's Greenwich Village, center of the mid-20th century American folk music revival. By 1962, Warner Bros. Records released the trio's first album, the eponymous Peter, Paul & Mary. The album remained in the Top Ten for ten months, in the Top Twenty for two years, and sold more than two million copies. Yarrow's songwriting helped to create some of Peter, Paul & Mary's best-known songs, including "Puff, the Magic Dragon", "Day Is Done", "Light One Candle", and "The Great Mandala".
Yarrow was instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival.
He released four solo albums during the 1970s and later the album "The Peter Yarrow Sing-Along Special" in 2010.
In 2000, he founded Operation Respect. On behalf of Operation Respect, Yarrow appeared, pro bono, in areas as diverse as Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bermuda, Croatia, South Africa, Egypt, Argentina, and Canada. In all, the program has been presented to many educational leaders and more than 10 million children. In some form, the project has reached nearly 1/3 of all elementary and middle schools in America, at least 20,000 schools, in all.
In 2003, a Congressional resolution recognized Yarrow's achievements and those of Operation Respect. The Congressional Caucus gave him a standing ovation. In August 2006, he met with representatives of 35 organizations, including the League of Cities, the Academy of Education, Americans for the Arts, and Newspapers in Education, to unite them in a commitment to “...shifting the American educational paradigm, to educating the whole child, not just in academics, but in character, heart, social-emotional development. As we Jews say, `let him be a mensch first; everything else will work out'".
Yarrow appeared as a performer on more than 60 albums, including on his daughter Bethany Yarrow's 2003 CD, Rock Island.
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.
…shrink me down again