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Mary Travers, R.I.P.

By Jeralyn, Section
Posted on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 09:59:21 PM EST
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Mary Travers, 72, of Peter, Paul and Mary, passed away today.

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    Mary Travers, R.I.P. | 19 comments (19 topical)

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    500 Miles (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by Anne on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 10:19:11 PM EST
    and If I Had a Hammer are my favorites - have been humming 500 Miles since I heard about Mary's death.

    I had kept an eye (5.00 / 4) (#3)
    by CoralGables on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 10:20:03 PM EST
    on the few concerts they had per year, hoping to take my daughter sometime so she could hear many of the songs we sang together when she was little (she being a member of the "Peter Paul and Mommy Too" Generation).

    It now falls into that category where Dad waited too long to follow through, when we should have just hopped a plane to where Peter Paul and Mary were performing.

    PBS has rerun their (none / 0) (#7)
    by oldpro on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:19:37 PM EST
    televised reunion concerts several times in recent years...even as Mary became increasingly ill.  Still...wonderful.

    Bet your daughter would love the CD.

    Parent

    Oh, no. She brought me and my kids (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by Cream City on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 10:35:17 PM EST
    so much joy, from the days when I listened to their albums -- I still have them all -- to the evenings when I would gather my kids in front of the teevee to grow up with them, too.  

    I love her version of "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free."  The joy in that modulation mid-song!

    But she did know -- and freed so many others of us to lift our voices and sing along . . . since when

    "I'd sing, then I'd know how it feels to be free."
    The song that hit me hardest (5.00 / 3) (#12)
    by oldpro on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:51:50 PM EST
    was late in their career...the mid 80s, those horrible Reagan years...the incredible El Salvador:

    There's a sunny little country south of Mexico
    Where the winds are gentle and the waters flow
    But breezes aren't the only things that blow
    in El Salvador
    If you took the little lady for a moonlight drive
    Odds are still good you'd come back alive
    But everyone is innocent until they arrive
    in El Salvador
    If the rebels take a bus on the grand highway
    The government destroys a village miles away
    The man on the radio says 'now we'll play South of the Border'
    And in the morning the natives say,
    We're happy you have lived another day
    Last night a thousand more passed away
    in El Salvador
    There's a television crew here from ABC
    Filming Rio Lempe and the refugees
    Calling murdered children the 'tragedy'
    of El Salvador
    Before the government cameras 20 feet away
    Another man is asking for continued aid
    Food and medicine and hand grenades
    for El Salvador
    There's a thump, a rumble, and the buildings sway
    A soldier fires the acid spray
    The public address system starts to play South of the Border
    You run for cover and hide your eyes
    You hear the screams from paradise
    They've fallen further than you realize
    in El Salvador
    Just like Poland is 'protected' by her Russian friends
    The junta is 'assisted' by Americans
    And if 60 million dollars seems too much to spend
    in El Salvador
    They say for half a billion they could do it right
    Bomb all day, burn all night
    Until there's not a living thing upright
    in El Salvador
    They'll continue training troops in the USA
    And watch the nuns that got away
    And teach the military bands to play South of the Border
    And kill the people to set them free
    Who put this price on their liberty?
    Don't you think it's time to leave
    El Salvador?

    Unwavering in their liberal, anti-war politics, they were true to the folk tradition to the end.  Just remarkable.

    The song hitting hard tonight (none / 0) (#13)
    by Cream City on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 12:08:47 AM EST
    with news of our loss of Travers that sent me to Youtube to see her again is this one she sang so well:  "And When I Die."

    I hope it's true, as the song goes, that she went naturally -- and that she now knows that, after all, there is a heaven.

    Parent

    As a kid (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by CST on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 07:35:36 AM EST
    My mom would play peter paul and mary on the guitar.  It's about the only thing she knew how to play, and they always makes me think of family and home.  When I think of their songs, I hear my mom's voice.  I wonder what happened to that guitar...

    Agree with the "If I had a Hammer" fans.

    Very sad (5.00 / 1) (#15)
    by ruffian on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 08:55:06 AM EST
    Definitely a beautiful voice that has been in my head since childhood.

    to quote a headline (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by Capt Howdy on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 09:08:11 AM EST
    from another blog:

    ok, everyone; stop dying now. ok?

    Kind of strange... (5.00 / 2) (#18)
    by MileHi Hawkeye on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 09:37:30 AM EST
    ...that I was watching "A Mighty Wind" on Comedy Central last night.  Folk music is almost forgotten art these days, but it played an important part in the development of modern music and the sociology of the 60's.

    Leukemia, pancreatic cancer--there's still an awful lot of diseases that we still need to advance detection of and treatments for.  

    RIP Mary.

    Goodbye Mary, and thanks. (5.00 / 2) (#20)
    by desertswine on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 10:36:30 AM EST
    What a beautiful and amazingly talented person.

    Lemon Tree, Puff the Magic Dragon, and (none / 0) (#1)
    by oculus on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 10:09:37 PM EST
    according to Wiki--John Denver.  Didn't know that.

    I saw them live once (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by gyrfalcon on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:25:12 PM EST
    from good seats.  It was a long time ago, but just past the period when they'd been really hot, so I was expecting to be slightly disappointed, but wow, they were fabulous performers who gave a great, great show even with so much material they'd sung thousands of times by then.  I loved every second of it.

    "If I Had a Hammer" electifies me to this day.  And "Leaving on a Jet Plane," which I heard for the first time at that concert, still makes me cry the way Mary sang it.

    Parent

    I heard Judy Collins live maybe 20 years (5.00 / 1) (#9)
    by oculus on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:27:23 PM EST
    ago.  Still such a clear voice.  

    Parent
    Yes. Send in the Clowns...stunning. (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by oldpro on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:33:04 PM EST


    Parent
    Saw Judy Collins in a very intimate venue in my (5.00 / 1) (#19)
    by Angel on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 10:14:13 AM EST
    town last year, and two years prior.  She's still gorgeous and her voice is clear as a bell.  She'll be here again this year and I'll try to get tickets.  I saw Don McLean about three years ago and he was fabulous.  So much great music in my growing-up days.  Glad some of them are still around and are touring for people like me who enjoy this sort of thing.  

    Parent
    And a lesser-known song (5.00 / 2) (#11)
    by Cream City on Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 11:39:32 PM EST
    but a lovely one on the Peter, Paul, and Mommy album was "Tell Me Why, My Son."  

    I had our choir sing it for my son's baptism -- and just recently, he had me sing it again after his wedding for his bride to hear it until I could get her here to haul out my old albums.  

    (Now daughter-in-law knows that her mother-in-law is reeeeeeally old -- but she also was impressed by my other vinyl.:-)

    Parent

    RIP Mary.... (none / 0) (#17)
    by kdog on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 09:24:49 AM EST
    the centerpiece of an American musical icon.  Never really my cup of tea musically, but ya gotta appreciate the amazing talent...and I'll be eternally grateful for one of the top marijuana anthems of American music.

    Wow (none / 0) (#21)
    by Lora on Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 09:03:31 PM EST
    She was 72????

    ---Um... that means... I'm getting old too.  She will always be young in my memory.  What a wonderful group they were.

    Mary Travers, R.I.P. | 19 comments (19 topical)

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