Too bad Lightfoot is performing down the road in Niagara Falls..
TheStar.com - artsentertainment
Patron saints of protest movement
Keeping the faith
You don't have to be a flower child from the '60s to remember Peter, Paul and Mary's greatest hits. They won five Grammys and had 13 Top 40 hits over the years. Here are some of their most memorable tunes:
"Blowin' in the Wind"
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
"If I Had a Hammer"
"500 Mile"
"Lemon Tree"
"Day is Done"
"Puff (The Magic Dragon)"
"The Wedding Song (There is Love)"
A new song written by Paul Stookey has been added to his repertoire.
"Song for Megumi" is a protest song about a Japanese schoolgirl abducted by North Korean agents in 1977.
Peter, Paul & Mary songs raised the conscience of '60s generation and still resonate today
Mar 02, 2007 04:30 AM
Jerry Gray
Special to the Star
Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
'Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you're a friend of mine.
– Anne Feeney
For all the reasons in American labour activist Anne Feeney's chorus, Peter, Paul and Mary are friends of mine, and friends of all people who dare to take a stand for social justice and take whatever criticism comes because of it.
Feeney's protest song is a new addition to the repertoire of the iconic folk trio, whose concert tonight at Roy Thomson Hall quickly sold out. Although they have flown below the radar in recent years (it's their first visit to Toronto since 1999), Peter, Paul and Mary's spirit of protest has been kept alive by a string of like-minded singers from Neil Young to the Dixie Chicks.
The trio's musical quest for justice has been there from the beginning in 1961 when music manager and promoter Albert Grossman, who had just signed Bob Dylan as a client, was looking for a group who could sing Dylan's new songs better than Dylan could.
He engaged three singers from different backgrounds, told them to go into a room and come out with a new "sound."
They found that the only song they knew in common was "Three Blind Mice." But after a day of rehearsal, "Three Blind Mice" had a new sound and a folk legend was born in three-part harmony.
Peter Yarrow, from a family of social-conscience thinkers, was living in New York trying to break into the folk scene. Mary Travers had been to several left-wing summer camps and had even been on a recording of Bantu songs, as part of a group called the Song Swappers, which American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger had set up in the mid-'50s. Noel (later Paul) Stookey was trying to make a name as a guitar-playing, sometime comedian.
Grossman got them to record Seeger's song of a decade earlier, written to protest the arrest of union leaders in 1949. The song was "If I Had a Hammer." He also got them Dylan's new song, "Blowin' In The Wind," thus beginning a repertoire of socially involved material.
They also recorded the songs written by a new wave of folk poets like Gordon Lightfoot, Eric Anderson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs.
PPM hit the charts at a time when the repressive McCarthyism of 1950s U.S. was giving way to the hope kindled by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. They helped the Freedom Riders in the Southern U.S. with their presence in marches and with inspirational song messages, along with Seeger, Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Harry Belafonte. The songs became anthems of newly involved collegians helping in the fight for racial equality and against American involvement in Vietnam.
News video and photos of Southern U.S. sheriffs unleashing dogs and high pressure hoses against women and children, and the discovery of the bodies of dead martyrs in the swamps of the Deep South, led to the massive March On Washington in 1963. The footage – still seen – is that of actor Ossie Davis introducing the new group, Peter, Paul and Mary, to sing, "Blowin' in the Wind." Following the rally, the FBI opened a file on every person who was on the dais.
PPM followed a long trail blazed by the likes of singer and labour-poet Joe Hill, the Almanac Singers, Woody Guthrie and The Weavers, who formed the template for all folk groups.
One of these was my own group, The Travellers, formed with the encouragement of Seeger, heralding a new Canadian approach to Canadian airwaves with a rewrite of Woody Guthrie's song "This Land Is Your Land." The song was banned from airplay in the U.S. as were both Guthrie and Seeger. The Travellers tried in their ongoing 55-year career to stay close to the traditions of both Seeger and The Weavers.
The Kingston Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver and others also owe at least part of their fame to PPM.
With the winding down of the civil rights movement and America opting out of Vietnam, the trio took several years off but were later asked to regroup and perform with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and occasionally, Neil Young, to sing out for new causes against nukes, poverty, starvation, and American involvement in the politics of Central and South America.
As Mary returns from battling leukemia and the trio takes to the stage tonight, fans who have remained true to the spirit of protest music will get a chance to join in Anne Feeney's song and let them know they are friends of theirs:
We must be ever vigilant for justice to prevail,
So get courage from your convictions
Let 'em haul you off to jail.
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Jerry Gray is a founding member of The Travellers, Canada's first folk group. Besides his performances with The Travellers he also performs solo and teaches university courses on folk and protest music. He can be reached at
grayg@rogers.com