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Mary Travers, one part of the folk trio Peter,
Paul, and Mary, who used beautiful, tranquil harmonies to convey
the angst and turmoil of the Vietnam antiwar movement, racial
discrimination and more, died after a yearslong battle with
leukemia. She was 72.


      The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, said Travers died Wednesday
at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.


      Bandmate Peter Yarrow said that in her final months, Travers
handled her declining health with bravery and generosity, showing
her love to friends and family "with great dignity and without
restraint."


      "It was, as Mary always was, honest and completely authentic,"
he said. "That's the way she sang, too - honestly and with
complete authenticity."


      Noel "Paul" Stookey, the trio's other member, praised Travers
for her inspiring activism, "especially in her defense of the
defenseless."


      "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," he said.


      Mary Allin Travers was born on Nov. 9, 1936, in Louisville, Ky.,
the daughter of journalists who moved the family to Manhattan's
bohemian Greenwich Village. 


She quickly became enamored with folk
performers like the Weavers and was soon performing with Pete
Seeger, a founding member of the Weavers who lived in the same
building as the Travers family.


      With a group called the Song Swappers, Travers backed Seeger on
one album and two shows at Carnegie Hall. She also appeared (as one
of a group of folk singers) in a short-lived 1958 Broadway show
called "The Next President," starring comedian Mort Sahl.


      It wasn't until she met up with Yarrow and Stookey that Travers
would taste success on her own. Yarrow was managed by Albert B.
Grossman, who later worked in the same capacity for Bob Dylan.


      In the book "Positively 4th Street" by David Hajdu, Travers
recalled that Grossman's strategy was to "find a nobody that he
could nurture and make famous."


      The budding trio, boosted by the arrangements of Milt Okun,
spent seven months rehearsing in her Greenwich Village apartment
before their 1961 public debut at the Bitter End.


      Their beatnik look - a tall blonde flanked by a pair of goateed
guitarists - was a part of their initial appeal. 


As The New York
Times critic Robert Shelton put it not long afterward, "Sex appeal
as a keystone for a folk-song group was the idea of the group's
manager ... who searched for months for `the girl' until he decided
on Miss Travers."


      The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage
and off. Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem
for racial equality. Other hits included "Lemon Tree," "Leaving
on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon.)"


      They were early champions of Dylan and performed his "Blowin'
in the Wind" at the March on Washington in August 1963.


      And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War,
managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music
that resonated in the American mainstream.


      The group collected five Grammy Awards for their three-part
harmony on enduring songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Puff
(The Magic Dragon)" and "Blowin' in the Wind."


      At one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six
Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the
folk revival movement.


      It was heady stuff for a trio that had formed in the early 1960s
in Greenwich Village, running through simple tunes like "Mary Had
a Little Lamb."


      Their debut album came out in 1962, and immediately scored a
pair of hits with their versions of "If I Had a Hammer" and
"Lemon Tree." The former won them Grammys for best folk recording
and best performance by a vocal group.


      "Moving" was the follow-up, including the hit tale of
innocence lost, "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" - which reached No. 2
on the charts, and generated since-discounted reports that it was
an ode to marijuana.


      Album No. 3, "In the Wind," featured three songs by the
then-22-year-old Dylan. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and
"Blowin' in the Wind" both reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's
material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies
during one two-week period.


      "Blowin' In the Wind" became another civil rights anthem, and
Peter, Paul and Mary fully embraced the cause. They marched with
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and performed with
him in Washington.


      In a 1966 Times interview, Travers said the three worked well
together because they respected one another. 


"There has to be a
certain amount of love just in order for you to survive together,"
she said. "I think a lot of groups have gone down the tubes
because they were not able to relate to one another."


      With the advent of the Beatles and Dylan's switch to electric
guitar, the folk boom disappeared. Travers expressed disdain for
folk-rock, telling the Chicago Daily News in 1966 that "it's so
badly written. ... When the fad changed from folk to rock, they
didn't take along any good writers."


      But the trio continued their success, scoring with the
tongue-in-cheek single "I Dig Rock and Roll Music," a gentle
parody of the Mamas and the Papas, in 1967 and the John
Denver-penned "Leaving on a Jet Plane" two years later.


      They also continued as boosters for young songwriters, recording
numbers written by then-little-known Gordon Lightfoot and Laura
Nyro.


      In 1969, the group earned their final Grammy for "Peter, Paul
and Mommy," which won for best children's album. They disbanded in
1971, launching solo careers - Travers released five albums - that
never achieved the heights of their collaborations.


      Over the years they enjoyed several reunions, including a
performance at a 1978 anti-nuclear benefit organized by Yarrow and
a 35th anniversary album, "Lifelines," with fellow folkies
Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk and Seeger. A boxed set of
their music was released in 2004.

      They remained politically active as well, performing in 1995 on
the anniversary of the Kent State shootings and performing for
California strawberry pickers.


      Travers had undergone a successful bone marrow transplant to
treat her leukemia and was able to return to performing after that.


      "It was like a miracle," Travers told The Associated Press in
2006. "I'm just feeling fabulous. What's incredible is someone has
given your life back. I'm out in the garden today. This time last
year I was looking out a window at a hospital." 
She also said she
told the marrow donor "how incredibly grateful I was."


      But by mid-2009, Yarrow told WTOP radio in Washington that her
condition had worsened again and he thought she would no longer be
able to perform.


      Travers lived for many years in Redding, Conn. She is survived
by her husband, Ethan Robbins, and daughters, Alicia and Erika.

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Mary Travers, one part of the folk trio Peter,
Paul, and Mary, has died after a yearslong battle with leukemia.

Mary Travers of 1960s folk trio dies at 72

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