Peter Yarrow

Peter Yarrow was born on 31 May 1938(86 years old) in New York. Peter Yarrow is Folk Singer, Zodiac sign - Gemini. More detail about Peter Yarrow given below.

Peter Yarrow Timeline

• 1943
  

  Yarrowu0027s mother Vera (1904u20131991), who had come to America at age three, became a speech and drama teacher at New Yorku0027s Julia Richman High School for girls. She and Bernard divorced in 1943 when their son Peter was five, and Vera subsequently married Harold Wisebrode, the executive director of the Central Synagogue in Manhattan. Bernard Yarrow married his wartime London OSS partner Silvia Tim, and converted to Protestantism.

• 1952
  

  After the war, Bernard Yarrow joined Sullivan and Cromwell, the Dulles brothersu0027 law firm. He was a founding board member of the National Committee for a Free Europe, an anti-Communist organization. In 1952 he became a senior vice-president of the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe, an organization he helped to found.

• 1955
  

  Upon graduation he played in folk clubs in New York City, appeared on the CBS television show, Folk Sound USA, and the following summer performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where he met manager and musical impresario Albert Grossman. One day, the two were at Israel Youngu0027s Folklore Center in Greenwich Village discussing Grossmanu0027s idea for a new group that would be "an updated version of the Weavers for the baby-boom generation ... with the crossover appeal of the Kingston Trio". Yarrow noticed a picture of Mary Travers on the wall and asked Grossman who she was. "Thatu0027s Mary Travers," Grossman said. "Sheu0027d be good if you could get her to work." The lanky, blonde Kentucky-born Travers was well connected in Greenwich Village folk song circles. While still a high-school student at the progressive Elizabeth Irwin High School she had been picked out by Elizabeth Irwinu0027s chorus leader Robert De Cormier to sing in a trio called The Song Swappers, backing up Pete Seeger in the 1955 Folkways LP reissue of the Almanac Singersu0027 The Talking Union and two other albums. As well as performing twice with Seeger at Carnegie Hall, Travers had also played a folksinger in a short-lived Broadway play called The Next President, starring satirist Mort Sahl, but she was known to be painfully introverted and loath to sing professionally. To draw her out, "Mr. Yarrow went to Ms. Traversu0027s apartment on MacDougal Street, across from the Gaslight, one of the principal folk clubs. They harmonized on u0027Mineru0027s Lifeguardu0027, a union song, and decided that their voices blended. To fill out the trio, Ms. Travers suggested Noel Stookey, a friend doing folk music and stand-up comedy at the Gaslight." They chose the catchy "Peter, Paul and Mary" as the name for their group, since Noel Stookeyu0027s middle name was Paul, and rehearsed intensively for six months, touring outside New York before debuting in 1961 as a polished act at The Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. There the singers quickly developed a following and signed a contract with Warner Brothers.

• 1959
  

  Peter Yarrow graduated second in his class among male students with a physics prize from New Yorku0027s High School of Music and Art, where he had studied painting. He was accepted at Cornell University as a physics major but soon switched majors, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1959. Among his Cornell classmates were Thomas Pynchon and Richard Fariu00f1a.

• 1962
  

  Warner released "Lemon Tree" as a single in early 1962, then followed with the triou0027s version of "If I Had a Hammer", written in 1949 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays to protest the imprisonment of Harlem City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. under the Smith Act. "If I had a Hammer" garnered two Grammy Awards in 1962. The triou0027s first album, the eponymous Peter, Paul & Mary, remained in the Top 10 for ten months, in the Top 20 for two years and sold more than two million copies. The group toured extensively and recorded numerous albums, both live and in the studio. In June 1963 they released a 7" single of "Blowinu0027 in the Wind" by the then-relatively unknown Bob Dylan, also managed by Grossman. "Blowinu0027 in the Wind" sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release and by August 17 was number two on the Billboard pop chart, with sales exceeding one million copies. Yarrow recalled that when he told Dylan he would make more than $5,000 (equivalent to $42,000 in 2019) from the publishing rights, Dylan was speechless. On August 28, 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary appeared on stage with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at his historic March on Washington where their performance of "Blowinu0027 in the Wind" established it as a civil rights anthem. Their version also spent weeks on Billboardu0027s easy listening chart. By 1964 the 26-year-old Yarrow had joined the Board of the Newport Folk Festival, where he had performed as an unknown just four years earlier.

• 1969
  

  While campaigning for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Yarrow met McCarthyu0027s niece, Mary Beth McCarthy, in Wisconsin. They were married in October 1969 in Willmar, Minnesota. Paul Stookey wrote "Wedding Song (There Is Love)" as his gift for their wedding and first performed it at St. Maryu0027s Church in Willmar. They had two children, but later divorced.

• 1970
  

  In 1970, Yarrow was convicted, and served three months in prison, for taking "improper liberties" with a 14-year-old girl who went with her 17-year-old sister to Yarrowu0027s hotel room seeking an autograph. "Yarrow answered the door naked and made sexual advances that stopped short of intercourse." The 14-year-old resisted his advances but according to reports, did not call for help. Yarrow served three months of a one-to three-year prison sentence.

• 1978
  

  He co-wrote and produced "Torn Between Two Lovers", a number one hit for Mary McGregor. He also produced three CBS TV specials based on "Puff, the Magic Dragon", which earned an Emmy nomination for him. In 1978 Yarrow organized Survival Sunday, an antinuclear benefit, and after a period of separation, he was once again joined by Stookey and Travers.

• 1981
  

  In 1981, Jimmy Carter granted Yarrow a presidential pardon for the crime. Nonetheless, it has occasionally become a campaign issue for politicians he supports. In 2004, Representative Martin Frost of Texas, a Democrat, canceled a fundraising appearance with the singer after his opponent ran a radio advertisement about Yarrowu0027s offense; in 2013 Republican politicians in New York State called on Democratic congressional candidate Martha Robertson to cancel a scheduled fundraiser with Yarrow. In 2019 he was disinvited from a folk music festival when the organizers were informed of his conviction.

• 1982
  

  Yarrow received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award in 1982 for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace, and freedom". In 1995 the Miami Jewish Federation recognized Yarrowu0027s continual efforts by awarding its Tikkun Olam Award for his part in helping to "repair the world".

• 1993
  

  Yarrow was awarded the Kate Wolf Memorial Award by the World Folk Music Association in 1993.

• 2000
  

  In 2000, in an effort to combat school bullying, Yarrow helped start Operation Respect, a nonprofit organization that brings to children, in schools and camps, a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each otheru0027s differences. The project began as a result of Yarrow and his daughter Bethany and his son Christopher having heard the song Donu0027t Laugh at Me (written by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin) at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Operation Respect later quoted Yarrow as saying:In December 2000, Yarrowu0027s Larrivee acoustic guitar was stolen on an airplane flight. In early 2005, fans spotted the guitar on eBay. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered it in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, and returned it to Yarrow. He did not press charges, as the person it was recovered from had not stolen it.

• 2003
  

  In 2003 a congressional resolution recognized Yarrowu0027s achievements and those of Operation Respect.

• 2005
  

  In 2005, Yarrow performed in Ho Chi Minh City at a concert to benefit the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange; Yarrow pleaded with the Vietnamese for forgiveness of the United States.

• 2006
  

  In August 2006, he met with representatives of 35 organizations, including the League of Cities, the Academy of Education, Americans for the Arts, and Newspapers in Education, to unite them in a commitment to "shifting the American educational paradigm, to educating the whole child; not just in academics but in character, heart, socialu2013emotional development. As we Jews say, u0027let him be a mensch first; everything else will work out.u0027" On November 1, 2008, Yarrow performed across New York City for volunteers who worked for the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. On October 3, 2011, Yarrow, his son, and his daughter made an appearance at Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests, playing songs such as "We Shall Not Be Moved" and a variation of "Puff the Magic Dragon".

• 2008
  

  Yarrow and his daughter Bethany Yarrow, who is also a musician, often perform together. Together with cellist Rufus Cappadocia, they form the trio Peter, Bethany, and Rufus. They released the CD Puff & Other Family Classics. In 2008, the musical special Peter, Bethany & Rufus: Spirit of Woodstock, featuring a live performance of the band, aired on public television.

• 2010
  

  Yarrow performed the world premiere of "The Colonoscopy Song" on the CBS early morning program The Early Show on March 9, 2010.

• 2015
  

  Yarrow portrayed leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam in the 2015 film While Weu0027re Young.