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Folk singer and voice of the sixties, Peter Yarrow, best known for his role in the Peter, Paul and Mary trio, has passed away after a four-year battle with bladder cancer. He was 86. 

The musician, who will be remembered for applying harmonizations to anti-war protest anthems, as well as co-writing and vocalizing fan favorites “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Day Is Done,” and “The Great Mandelas,” death was confirmed via his publicist, Ken Sunshine. 

Yarrow’s daughter, Bethany, commented, “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life. The world knows Peter Yarrow, the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.”

Yarrow’s musical career found its footing during his final year at Cornell University. There, he enrolled in Harold Thompson’s popular American Folk Literature course, known on campus as “Romp & Stomp.” The course required singing and guitar skills as a prerequisite. Yarrow’s class status initiated his first performances in front of an audience and served as the launch pad for his career.

After graduation, Yarrow found himself in New York’s famed Greenwich Village,  where he brushed shoulders with music manager Israel Young, who pitched his idea to create a music group in line with The Kingston Trio and an updated take on the Weavers—along with Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey, Yarrow and company stepped out as Peter, Paul and Mary. 

The ensemble track cover of Pete Seegar’s “If I Had a Hammer” earned two Grammy Awards in 1962, and their self-titled debut album graced the album chart’s Top 10 for an astonishing 10 months and Top 20 for two years. The band’s 1963 cover of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” helped bolster the unknown artist’s career, partly due to management crossover. 

Yarrow and his bandmates used their platform and appeared on stage with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 during the March on Washington when King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech,” and the band performed “Blowin’ in the Wind,” strengthening the song’s categorization as an anti-war protest anthem. 

By 1964, Yarrow joined the Board of the Newport Folk Festival after performing at the beloved event four years earlier. Notably the year Dylan went electric. Given Yarrow’s role, he was a key player in Dylan’s historic performance. The bard used Yarrow’s acoustic guitar to close out his Newport set, playing “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” a scene captured in the new movie Like a Complete Unknown. 

Yarrow’s career was overshadowed in 1970 following a conviction for sexual misconduct involving a 14-year-old minor, for which he served three months in prison and was later pardoned in 1981 by then-President Jimmy Carter. 

Yarrow was outspoken, repeatedly apologizing for the crime in the years that followed his sentencing and time served. In 2019, he told the New York Times, “I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty.”

Following an extensive break from the public eye, Yarrow penned “Torn Between Two Lovers” with Phillip Jarrell. Mary MacGregor recorded the song at the famed Muscle Shoals. It held the No. 1 position in the U.S. Pop Charts in 1977.

In 1979, Yarrow received an Emmy nomination for the animated adaptation of “Puff the Magic Dragon.” The latter portion of his career saw an ascent into social activism through songs like his Margery Tabankin co-write, “No Easy Walk to Freedom,” and Lebanon peace pled “Light One Candle.” 

Yarrow met his longtime partner, Mary Beth McCarthy, in 1968 while her father, Eugene McCarthy, campaigned in Wisconsin. The pair married in 1969, divorcing and ultimately reuniting in 2022. 

Yarrow is survived by his wife, daughter Bethany, son Christopher, and granddaughter Valentina.