Farewell, Mary Travers

9:35 AM GMT 17/09/2009

Mary Travers, folk star and one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, has died in Connecticut after a lengthy battle with leukemia. She was 72.

Noel "Paul" Stookey, her bandmate of almost 50 years, said: "I am deadened and heartsick beyond words to consider a life without Mary Travers and honored beyond my wildest dreams to have shared her spirit and her career".

Peter Yarrow explained that Travers had dealt with her declining health "in the bravest, most generous way imaginable". He added: "I believe that, in the most profound of ways, Mary was incapable of lying, as a person, and as an artist - that took great courage, and Mary was always equal to the task."

Born on November 9, 1936 in Louisville, Kentucky, Travers and her family moved to the bohemian enclave of New York's Greenwich Village, quickly finding a home in the same building as folk stalwarts The Weavers.

Travers soon began singing with the collective's leader, Pete Seeger, before a meeting with Peter Yarrow and his manager Albert Grossman led to the formation of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Their eponymous debut album (released in 1962) was a mix of lush harmonies and strong political polemic with songs such as I Had A Hammer and Cruel War pre-empting the decade's social upheavals and anti-Vietnam movement. The three-piece quickly became one of most popular groups in America, their performances at the Newport Folk Festival and at Civil Rights marches alongside Bob Dylan and Joan Baez soon positioning them at the forefront of the US folk revival

After hitting the top of the charts in 1969 with a cover of John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane, the group split in 1971. Travers went on to release five solo albums, but it was the reunions with Peter and Paul that proved most successful.

She is survived by her husband, Ethan Robbins and her daughters, Alicia and Erika.

A full obituary will appear in a future issue of MOJO magazine.

Peter, Paul and Mary at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 9:35 AM GMT 17/09/2009

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