Peter, Paul & Mary

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The trio Peter, Paul and Mary (often PP&M) is an American musical group that was one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. The trio comprises Peter Yarrow, Noel "Paul" Stookey, and Mary Travers.



The group was created and managed by Albert Grossman, who sought to create a folk "supergroup" by bringing together "a tall blonde (Travers), a funny guy (Stookey), and a good looking guy (Yarrow)." He launched the group in 1961, booking them into the The Bitter End, a coffee house and popular folk venue in New York City's Greenwich Village.



The group recorded their first album, Peter, Paul and Mary, the following year. It included "500 Miles," "Lemon Tree", and the hit Pete Seeger tunes "If I Had a Hammer," ("The Hammer Song") and " Where Have All the Flowers Gone,". The album was listed on Billboard Magazine Top Ten list for ten months and in the Top One Hundred for over three years.



By 1963, they had recorded three albums, released "Puff the Magic Dragon", which Yarrow and fellow Cornell student Leonard Lipton had written in 1959, and performed "If I Had a Hammer" at the 1963 March on Washington, best remembered for Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Their biggest single hit was the Bob Dylan song, "Blowin' in the Wind," an international 1 and the fastest selling single ever cut by Warner Brothers Records. For many years after, the group was at the forefront of the civil rights movement and other causes promoting social justice. "Leaving On A Jet Plane," which in December 1969 became their only 1 (as well as their final Top 40) hit, was written by the then-unknown John Denver and first appeared on their Album 1700 in 1967. "Day Is Done," a 21 hit in June 1969, was the last Hot 100 hit the trio recorded.



On March 26, 1970, Peter Yarrow pled guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 14-year old girl in an August 31, 1969, incident at the Shoreham Hotel prior to a Washington, D.C., concert. Beginning September 1970 he served 3 months in prison. He was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981.



The trio broke up in 1970 to pursue solo careers, but found little of the success they did as a group, although Stookey's "The Wedding Song (There Is Love)" (written for Yarrow's marriage to Marybeth McCarthy, the niece of senator Eugene McCarthy) was a hit and has become a wedding standard since its 1971 release.



In 1978, they reunited for a concert to protest nuclear energy, and have recorded albums together and toured since. They currently play around 25 shows a year.



The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.



In 2004, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia, leading to the cancellation of the remaining tour dates for that year. She received a bone marrow transplant and is recovering successfully. She and the rest of the trio resumed their concert tour on December 9, 2005 with a holiday performance at Carnegie Hall and are scheduled for several additional concerts in 2006.



Peter, Paul and Mary received in 2006 the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from Songwriters Hall of Fame.



The trio sang at in Mitchell, South Dakota George and Eleanor McGovern Library and Center for Leadership dedication concert on October 5, 2006.