Mary Allin Travers [3] was an American singer-songwriter and member of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. Almost unique among the folk musicians who emerged from the Greenwich Village scene in the early 1960s, Travers actually came from the neighborhood.[3]
| (November 9, 1936 – September 16, 2009) |
She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Robert Travers and Virginia Coigney, both of whom were journalists and were active organizers for The Newspaper Guild, a trade union.[4] In 1938, the family moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, New York. She attended the Little Red School House in New York City, but left in the eleventh grade to pursue her singing career.
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While in high school, she joined The Song Swappers, which sang backup for Pete Seeger when Folkways Records reissued a union song collection, Talking Union, in 1955. The Song Swappers recorded a total of four albums for Folkways in 1955, all with Seeger. Travers had regarded her singing as a hobby and was shy about it, but was encouraged by fellow musicians.[3] Travers also was in the cast of the Broadway-theatre show, The Next President.[5]
The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961, and they were an immediate success. The Associated Press, in Travers' obituary noted:
The group's first album, "Peter, Paul and Mary" came out in 1962 and immediately scored 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.
Their next album, Moving, included 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.
The trio's third album, In the Wind, featured three songs by the 22-year-old Bob Dylan. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right and Blowin' in the Wind reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period.[6]
All in all, "[a]t 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."[6]
Their version of If I Had a Hammer became an anthem for racial equality, as did Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind, which they performed at the August 1963 March on Washington.[6] Puff, the Magic Dragon is so well-known that it has entered American and British pop culture.
The group broke up in 1970, and Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums, "Mary" (1971), "Morning Glory" (1972), "All My Choices" (1973), "Circles" (1974) and "It's in Everyone of Us" (1978). [3] The group re-formed in 1978, toured extensively and issued many new albums. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.
Travers’s first three marriages [1. ? (m. 1958-1960), 2. Barry Feinstein (m. 1963-1968), 3. Gerald Taylor (m. 1969-1975)][7] ended in divorce. She is survived by her fourth husband, restaurateur Ethan Robbins (married 1991), two daughters, Erika Marshall (born 1960) of Naples FL, and Alicia Travers (born 1965) of Greenwich CT; half-brother John Travers; a sister, Ann Gordon, Ph.D. of Oakland CA, and two grandchildren, Wylie and Virginia. Travers lived in Redding, Connecticut.[3]
In 2005, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia. Although a bone-marrow transplant was apparently successful in beating the disease, Travers died on September 16, 2009, at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, from complications arising from chemotherapy.[3] She was 72 years old.
Solo discography
- Mary, Warner Bros., 1971
- Morning Glory, Warner Bros., 1972
- All My Choices, Warner Bros., 1973
- Circles, Warner Bros., 1974
- It's In Everyone of Us, Chrysalis, 1978
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